LIFE  AND  SPEECHES 


OF 


THOMAS  CORWIN 

ii 

ORATOR 

% 

LAWYER  AND  STATESMAN 


EDITED  BY 

JOSIAH   MORROW 


CINCINNATI: 

W.  H.  ANDERSON  &  CO. 
1896. 


Copyright,  1896,  by  W.  H.  Anderson  &  Co. 


8PKECKELS 


PUBLISHERS'  NOTE. 


'"T~VHIS  volume  owes  its  origin  to  some  warm  admirers  of 
1  the  character  and  genius  of  Thomas  Corwin  in  the  vil 
lage  which  was  his  home.  Before  the  erection  of  a  monu 
ment  over  the  grave  of  Corwin  in  the  cemetery  at  Lebanon 
the  suggestion  was  made  that  a  publication  of  his  speeches, 
with  a  sketch  of  his  life,  would  be  a  better  and  more  enduring 
monument  to  the  memory  of  the  great  orator  than  a  shaft  of 
marble  or  granite. 

John  P.  Comly,  a  printer,  whose  last  years  were  passed  in 
Lebanon,  frequently  urged  the  preparation  and  publication 
of  such  a  work.  He  had  been  one  of  the  publishers  of  the 
"Speeches  of  Thomas  Corwin,  with  a  sketch  of  his  life,  edited 
by  Isaac  Strohm, "  printed  at  Dayton,  Ohio,  in  1859,  a  book 
long  out  of  print;  and  in  1882  he  carried  on  an  extensive 
correspondence  with  Mr.  Strohm,  then  at  Washington,  con 
cerning  a  proposed  revision  and  continuation  of  the  memoir 
in  that  work.  Mr.  Comly  succeeded  in  getting  some  public- 
spirited  citizens  of  Lebanon  interested  in  the  proposed  book. 
A  circular  was  issued,  and  in  reply  to  it  so  many  letters  of 
encouragement  were  received  from  eminent  public  men  and 
librarians  throughout  the  nation  that  the  publication  of  the 
work  was  determined  upon.  While  reading  the  first  proofs 
of  some  specimen  pages,  Mr.  Comly,  like  the  illustrious  au 
thor  of  the  speeches,  was  striken  with  paralysis,  and  died  in 
a  few  hours.  Not  long  after  Mr.  Strohm  died  at  his  home  in 
Greene  county. 

Chief  among  those  at  Lebanon  who  gave  encouragement 
and  substantial  aid  to  the  projected  volume  was  the  lamented 
Judge  Walter  S.Dilatush,  of  the  common  pleas  bench.   With 
in 

101535 


iv  PUBLISHERS'  NOTE. 

out  the  generous  assistance  given  by  this  young  judge,  who 
was  loved  while  he  lived  and  is  remembered  with  fond  regret, 
this  volume  would  hardly  have  appeared.  It  was  he  who 
induced  the  author  of  the  biography  here  presented  to  under 
take  its  preparation,  and  the  publishers  of  the  book  to  give 
it  to  the  public.  He  did  not  live  to  see  the  publication  far 
advanced.  After  reading  the  proofs  of  the  completed  biog 
raphy  he  was  seized  with  the  malady  which  terminated  his 
earthly  career  before  he  had  reached  the  prime  of  manhood. 

The  gentlemen  who  projected  the  volume  selected  Josiah 
Morrow  to  write  the  life  of  Corwin.  He  was  the  last  student 
of  law  who  entered  the  office  of  Corwin  at  Lebanon,  and  his 
collection  of  manuscripts  and  printed  papers  relating  to  the 
orator  is  probably  the  largest  in  existence.  He  had  long  been 
a  careful  student  of  the  history  of  Ohio  and  the  Miami  valley, 
and  the  publishers  believe  that  the  story  of  the  life  and  work 
of  Thomas  Corwin  will  be  found  to  be  well  told  in  the  pages 
prepared  by  him. 

The  volume  is  presented  to  the  public  in  the  confident  be 
lief  that  it  will  be  found  worthy  of  a  place  in  the  library  of 
every  admirer  of  true  eloquence  and  every  student  of  the 
political  history  of  our  country.  ( 

THE  PUBLISHERS. 


PREFACE. 


THE  memoir  of  Corwin  in  this  volume  is  the  first  one 
given  to  the  public  sufficiently  ample  in  its  account  of 
his  public  and  private  life  to  entitle  it  to  be  called  a  biogra 
phy.  In  its  preparation  the  author  has  diligently  sought  all 
sources  of  information  both  in  manuscript  and  in  print.  He 
has  received  courteous  assistance  from  the  family  and  rela 
tives  of  the  orator,  as  well  as  from  lawyers  at  Lebanon  and 
public  men  who  were  intimate  with  him.  Not  much  mate 
rial  for  the  biography  was  found  ready  at  hand.  Little  as 
sistance  was  derived  from  the  brief  sketches  of  Corwin  pub 
lished  in  his  lifetime.  They  were  either  too  much  taken  up 
with  indiscriminate  panegyric,  or  were  found  to  contain  such 
careless  and  inaccurate  statements  of  fact  as  to  preclude  the 
supposition  that  they  had  been  submitted  to  the  subject  for 
his  approval.  A.  P.  Russell's  monograph  does  not  purport 
to  be  a  biography.  No  published  account  of  Corwin  could 
be  accepted  as  a  basis  for  the  present  work.  Facts  derived 
from  the  writer's  researches  will  be  found  in  almost  all  the 
chapters.  Without  going  into  detail,  it  may  be  said  that  the 
account  of  Cor  win's  first  appearance  in  politics  and  his  en 
trance  into  public  life  are  here  correctly  given  for  the  first 
time,  as  are  the  remarkable  facts  concerning  his  first  election 
to  congress. 

The  volume  is  intended  to  contain  all  the  speeches  of 
Corwin  which  were  reported  and  revised  in  his  lifetime  for 
publication.  The  earliest  of  his  efforts  which  have  been  pre 
served,  a  speech  in  the  Ohio  House  of  Representatives  against 
the  whipping-post,  is  given.  Throughout  his  long  services 
in  both  Houses  of  congress  all  his  speeches  reported  and  re- 

V 


VI  PREFACE. 

vised  for  the  printer  are  given  without  abridgment.  The 
volume  concludes  with  his  last  speech  in  congress  on  the 
perilous  condition  of  the  nation  in  1861,  when  he  patriotic 
ally  sought  for  a  way  to  save  the  Union  without  civil  war. 
Along  with  his  speeches  in  legislative  bodies  will  be  found 
such  of  his  occasional  addresses  as  have  been  preserved  by 
rinding  their  way  to  the  printing-office.  In  short,  the  work 
is  believed  to  contain  all  the  public  utterances  of  Thomas 
Corwin  which  he  would  have  been  willing  to  have  included 
in  a  collection  of  his  speeches.  The  fact  that  it  has  been 
found  possible  to  present  in  a  single  volume  a  complete  col 
lection  of  the  speeches  of  an  eminent  orator  and  statesman 
will  make  the  book  all  the  more  welcome  to  the  public  and 
private  library. 
Lebanon,  Ohio. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

Chronological  Record ix 

LIFE  OF  THOMAS  CORWIN. 

The  Corwin  Name  and  Family i 

The  Father 5 

The  Turtlecreek  Valley  and  its  Pioneers 9 

The  Wagon  Boy,  and  his  Education 12 

The  Lawyer .    .    17 

Beginnings  in  Politics 23 

In  Congress 29 

Campaign  of  1840 33 

Governor  and  Ex-Governor — 1840-1844 39 

In  the  Senate 46 

In  the  Cabinet      53 

Return  to  Congress 59 

Minister  to  Mexico 67 

The  Last  of  Earth 72 

His  Most  Eloquent  Speech 78 

Reminiscences 83 

SPEECHES  OF  THOMAS  CORWIN 

Inaugural  Address  as  Governor  of  Ohio. 

Delivered  to  the  Legislature  December  16,  1840    .    .    99 
./Masonic  Oration. 

Delivered  at  Hamilton,  Ohio,  June  24,  1826    .    .    .    .112 
/  Address  of  Welcome  to  John  Quincy  Adams. 

At  Lebanon,  Ohio,  November  7,  1843 128 

In  defense  of  Judge  McLean. 

In  the  Senate  January  23,  1849 130 

On  the  Action  of  Ohio  touching  Fugitive  Slaves. 

In  the  Senate  April  3,  1850 135 

On  the  Bill  for  the  Relief  of  William  Darby. 

In  the  Senate  April  23,  1850 137 

VII 


VIII  CONTENTS 

PAGE, 
j    Against  Corporal  Punishment. 

In  the  Legislature  of  Ohio  December  18,  1822   .    .    .  139 
On  the  Public  Deposits. 

1 

In  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United 

States  April  4,  1834 149 

/   Memorials  in  Relation  to  the  Public  Deposits. 

In  the  House  of  Representatives  April  7,  1834  .    .    .189 
/    On  the  Constitution  of  Michigan. 

In  the  House  of  Representatives  December  28,  1835    193 
On  the  Surplus  Revenue. 

In  the  House  of  Representatives  January  12,  1837    .  197 
On  the  Cumberland  Road. 

In  the  House  of  Representatives  April  20,  1838     .    .  224 
Reply  to  General  Crary. 

Inthe_House  of  Representatives  February  15,  1 840    246 
BountyXands  to  Soldiers  in  the  Mexican  War. 

In  the  Senate  January  14,  1847 264 

\On  the  Mexican  War. 

In  the  Senate  February  n,  1847 277 

\  Incidental  Remarks  on  the  "Three  Million  Bill." 

In  the  Senate  March  i,  1847 31^ 

The  Territorial  Government  of  Oregon. 

In  the  Senate  July  12,1848 317 

The  Clayton  Compromise  Bill. 

In  the  Senate  July  24,  1848 324 

A  Campaign  Speech. 

At  Ironton,  Ohio,  August  19,  1859 359 

On  the  Slavery  Question. 

Speech  in  the  Speakership  Contest  of  the  House 

of  Representatives  January  23  and  24,  1860   .    .    .  385 
On  the  Report  of  the  Committee  of  Thirty-Three. 

In  the  House  of  Representatives  January  21,  1861    .  457 


CHRONOLOGICAL  RECORD  OF  CORWIN'S  LIFE. 


1794.      Born  in  Bourbon  county,  Kentucky,  July  29th. 
1798.     Migrated  with  his  father  to  the  North-west  Territory. 

180G.  Attended  a  school  in  Lebanon  taught  by  an  English  clergyman  of 
good  education  and  attracted  attention  by  his  fine  elocution  in 
school  exhibitions. 

1812.  Drove  a  wagon  loaded  with  supplies  for  Harrison's  army  through  the 
swamps  of  the  St.  Mary's  country;  from  this  came  his  sobriquet 
of  "  the  wagon  boy." 

1814.  Entered  the  office  of  the  clerk  of  court  as  assistant. 

1815.  Began  the  study  of  law  in  the  office  of  Judge  Joshua  Collett. 

1817.  Admitted  to  the  bar  in  May,  and  opened  a  law-office  in  Lebanon. 

1818.  Appointed  prosecuting  attorney  of  Warren  county,  and  served  in  that 

capacity  ten  years. 

1821.  Elected  a  representative  in  the  legislature,  and  re-elected  the  next 

year. 

1822.  Married  to  Miss  Sarah  Ross  at  Lebanon,  November  13th. 

1824.  Supported  Clay  for  president,  Jackson,  Adams,  Crawford  and  Clay 
being  candidates. 

1827.  Advocated  the  re-election  of  President  J.  Q.  Adams  and  was  one  of 
the  secretaries  of  the  Ohio  state  convention  of  the  supporters  of 
Adams. 

1829.  Again  elected  a  representative  in  the  legislature. 

1830.  Delivered  an  address  at  the  commencement  of  Miami  University. 
1830.     First  election  to  congress. 

1831.) 

1840    i  Representative  in  congress. 

1834.     First  speech  in  congress,  April  4th. 

1840.  Nominated  as  the  Whig  candidate  for  governor  at  Columbus,  Febru 
ary  22nd,  and  resigned  his  seat  in  congress  to  take  effect  in  May. 


X.  CHRONOLOGICAL    RECORD. 


1842    I  Governor  of  Ohio. 


1842.     Candidate  for  re-election  as  governor  and  defeated — his  only  defeat 
at  the  polls. 

1844.     President  of  the  Ohio  Whig  state  convention;  unanimously  tendered 
the  nomination  for  governor  for  the  third  time,  which  he  declined. 

1844.     His  name  placed  at  the  head  of  the  Clay  electoral  ticket  in  Ohio. 

1844.     Elected  United  States  senator,  December  5th,  for  six  years  from 
March  4th,  1845. 

1850    [  United  States  senator. 

1847.     Speech  in  the  senate  against  the  Mexican  war,  February  llth. 

1850.  1 

1853.  f  Secretary  of  the  treasury  in  the  cabinet  of  President  Fillmore. 

1854.  Established  a  law  office  at  Cincinnati,   retaining   his  residence   at 

Lebanon. 

1858.     Elected  to  congress  by  the  Republicans. 

1860.     Re-elected  to  congress.     Supported  Lincoln  for  president. 

1860.     Chairman  of  a  select  committee  of  the  house,  consisting  of  one  from 
each  state  to  consider  the  national  perils. 

1861. { 

1864.  f  United  States  minister  to  Mexico. 

1864.  Established  a  law-office  in  Washington. 

1865.  Died  in  Washington,  December  18th. 


LIFE  OF  THOMAS  CORWIN. 


THE  CORWIN  NAME  AND  FAMILY. 


The  Corwin  family  is  one  of  the  oldest  in  America.  Fourteen 
years  after  the  arrival  of  the  Mayflower,  Matthias  Corwin,  the  origi 
nal  ancestor  of  the  family  in  this  country,  is  found  settled  at  Ipswich,  in 
Massachusetts  Bay  Colony,  whence  he  soon  removed  to  Long  Island. 
Thomas  was  of  the  seventh  generation  descended  from  him.  Efforts 
have  been  made,  it  must  be  confessed  without  much  success,  to  trace 
the  Corwins  far  back  in  the  history  of  Hungary  and  to  find  the  ori 
gin  of  the  name  and  family  in  the  celebrated  Hungarian  king,  Mat 
thias  Corvinus.  The  researches  of  the  pains-taking  author  of  the 
Corwin  Genealogy,*  who  carefully  traced  the  history  of  the  Ameri 
can  families  of  Corwin,  Curwen  and  Corwine,  failed  to  establish  a 
connection  of  any  of  these  names  with  any  family  of  Hungary  or  of 
the  continent  of  Europe,  but  he  found  that  the  immigrant  ancestors 
of  all  the  familes  bearing  these  names  probably  came  from  England. 

In  reply  to  a  letter  of  inquiry  from  the  author  of  the  Corwin 
Genealogy,  Thomas  Corwin  wrote  in  1859  that  he  had  received  let 
ters  and  commvmications  written  to  show  the  connection  of  the 
family  with  the  Hungarian  Corvinus,  and  that  at  the  time  he  read 
them  their  account  seemed  to  him  quite  plausible,  and  added:  "I  could 
never  bring  myself  to  feel  interest  enough  in  the  subject  to  with 
draw  me  from  necessary  labor  long  enough  to  make  such  researches 
as  to  enable  me  to  form  even  a  plausible  guess  as  to  the  persons  who 
might  have  been  at  work  for  ten  centuries  back  in  the  laudable  effort 
to  bring  me,  nolens  volens,  into  this  breathing  world  on  the  29th  of 

*The   Corwin    Genealogy  (Curwin,   Curwen,   Corwine)    in    the  United    States   by 

Edward  Tanjore  Corwin,  New  York:  1872. 
o 


2  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

July  (a    most    uncomfortable    time    of  the  year),   in    the    year    of 
grace,  1794." 

The  Hungarian  origin  of  the  family  and  name  which  may  have 
been  at  first  only  a  surmise  came  to  be  regarded  as  probable  and  has 
been  published  as  an  established  fact.  It  was  probably  first  sug 
gested  by  the  similarity  of  the  surnames  Corwin  and  Corvinus. 
Even  the  Christian  name  of  the  Hungarian  king  frequently  recurs  in 
the  Corwin  genealogy,  three  Matthias  Corwins  being  found  in  the 
direct  line  of  the  American  ancestors  of  Thomas.  The  swarthy 
complexion  of  the  great  orator  could  be  readily  explained  by  the 
blood  of  the  Huns  in  his  veins  by  those  who  were  disposed  to 
accept  the  conjecture  of  a  royal  descent.  Unfortunately  there  is  no 
documentary  or  historical  evidence  that  the  family  came  from  Hun 
gary,  and  the  conjecture  of  such  an  origin  is  even  without  the  cor 
roboratory  support  of  a  family  tradition  handed  down  through  many 
generations.  The  fact,  however,  that  the  most  eminent  man  of  the 
name  at  one  time  regarded  this  theory  of  the  derivation  of  his  family 
and  name  as  plausible,  when  he  read  it  hastily  amid  the  cares  of  a 
busy  life,  forbids  our  laying  it  aside  as  unworthy  of  consideration 
and  will  lend  interest  to  a  glance  at  the  history  of  the  surname  Cor 
vinus. 

The  good  king  Matthias  Hunyady,  whose  name  is  more  familiar 
as  Matthias  Corvinus,  ascended  the  throne  of  Hungary  at  the  age  of 
eighteen  in  1458,  and  after  a  prosperous  reign  of  thirty-two  years  died 
in  1490.  He  was  not  only  an  able  and  warlike  monarch,  who  subdued 
rebellious  nobles  and  restored  order,  law  and  prosperity,  but  he  gave 
encouragement  to  learning  and  governed  his  people  with  such 
impartiality  that  his  name  long  survived  in  the  popular  adage,  "King 
Matthias  is  dead,  justice  is  gone."  His  father  was  John  Hunyady, 
also  called  Corvinus,  who  from  a  humble  origin  rose  to  the  com 
mand  of  the  Hungarian  army  and  was  elected  supreme  captain  and 
governor.  Gibbon  tells  us  that  John  was  the  son  of  a  Wallachian 
father  and  a  Greek  mother,  and  that  his  surname,  Corvinus,  was 
derived  from  his  native  village.  This  village  is  on  the  Danube,  in 
Wallachia.  Corvinus  is  a  Latin  adjective  or  epithet  derived  from 
corvus,  a  crow  or  raven,  and  as  a  surname  was  borne  by  a  single 
branch  of  the  Valerian  family  at  Rome.  The  legendary  origin  of  the 
surname  is  that  it  was  given  to  Valerius,  a  tribune  of  the  soldiers, 
B.  C.  349,  who  when  he  was  engaged  in  a  conflict  with  a  Gaul  of 


THE    CORWIN    NAME    AND    FAMILY.  3 

powerful  strength  and  stature,  was  assisted  by  a  crow  which  attacked 
the  eyes  of  his  enemy. 

There  have  been  family  traditions  which  refer  the  Corwins  to  a 
Welch,  and  others  to  a  German  origin.  There  is  a  town  named 
Corwen  in  the  parish  of  Corwen,  in  Merionetshire,  Wales,  but  no 
family  bearing  this  name  has  been  found  in  that  vicinity.  The  town 
is  supposed  to  have  received  its  name  from  the  Welch  words  caer 
wen,  meaning  white  stone,  descriptive  of  the  white  rocks  at  the  back 
of  the  village.  Historical  characters  named  Corvinus  and  Corvin 
have  appeared  at  various  times  in  Germany.  The  Curwens  were  an 
ancient  family  of  Cumberland,  England,  who  have  written  their  sur 
name  Curwen  since  the  fifteenth  century,  before  which  it  was  Culwen. 
In  Ireland  Corin  and  Curran  are  common  orthographies  of  what  may 
have  been  originally  the  same  name.  In  the  United  States  Corwine 
is  sometimes  met  with.  In  the  family  of  Thomas  Corwin  the  name 
was  sometimes  pronounced  Curwen  and  Curran  even  after  the  emi 
gration  to  Ohio. 

Turning  from  the  legendary  and  mythical  to  the  more  authentic 
family  history  in  America,  the  reader  most  fond  of  genealogical  re 
search  must  rest  content  with  a  descent  traced  through  six  genera 
tions  on  American  soil.  The  ancestors  of  the  great  orator  in  this 
country  were  for  the  most  part  plain  and  respectable  people,  gen 
erally  tillers  of  the  soil  and  none  of  them  distinguished  for  genius, 
wit  or  learning.  Among  them  no  one  has  other  claim  to  our  atten 
tion  than  as  the  progenitor  of  a  distinguished  man  except  the  father 
of  Thomas,  who  was  a  man  of  note  in  the  community  in  which 
he  lived. 

Matthias  Corwin,  the  first  of  the  name  in  America,  was  among 
the  earliest  immigrants  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony  and  is 
found  at  Ipswich  in  1634.  It  is  believed  that  he  came  from  England 
and  had  arrived  in  the  colony  a  few  years  before,  probably  about 
1630.  About  1640  he  removed  to  Southhold,  Long  Island,  and 
was  one  of  the  leading  men  in  the  first  settlement  of  that  place. 
Here  he  lived  for  the  last  eighteen  years  of  his  life,  and  here  he  died 
in  1658.  His  last  will  and  testament  was  recorded  in  the  Southhold 
records  September  15th,  1658,  and  is  yet  preserved,  and  in  it  his 
name  appears  as  Mathias  Curwen.  The  name  of  his  immediate 
descendants  in  the  same  records  is  written  Corwin.  The  early  pro 
nunciation  of  the  name  on  Long  Island  is  said  to  have  been  Currin. 


4  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

The  descendants  of  the  immigrant  ancestor  resided  for  several 
generations  on  Long  Island.  John,  his  oldest  son,  died  at  South- 
hold  September  25th,  1702,  leaving  three  sons,  the  second  of  Avhom, 
Matthias,  was  the  father  of  Jesse,  the  great  grandfather  of  Thomas. 
His  son,  Jesse,  the  grandfather  of  Thomas,  was  the  first  to  emigrate 
to  the  west.  He  was  born  on  Long  Island  in  1736,  moved  from 
his  native  place  to  Morris  county,  New  Jersey,  thence,  in  1776,  to 
Fayette  county,  in  western  Pennsylvania,  and  thence,  in  1785,  to 
Bourbon  county,  Kentucky,  where  he  died  in  1791.  Before  leaving 
Long  Island  he  married  Kezia  Case,  who,  after  having  been  a  resi 
dent  of  five  states,  died  in  Ohio  in  1816,  aged  seventy-nine  years, 
and  the  tombstone  of  Kezia  Corwin,  grandmother  of  Thomas  Cor- 
win,  is  still  to  be  seen  in  an  old  grave-yard  at  Lebanon.  Jesse  and 
Kezia  Corwin  were  the  ancestors  of  the  numerous  Corwins  of  War 
ren  county,  Ohio,  all  of  their  eight  children,  except  one  daughter, 
becoming  residents  of  that  county. 


THE   FATHER. 


The  name  of  the  father  of  Thomas  Corwin  occupies  a  conspic 
uous  place  in  the  history  of  the  county,  in  which  the  greater  portion 
of  his  adult  life  was  passed.  Matthias  Corwin  was  born  in  Morris 
county,  New  Jersey,  February  19th,  1761,  and  was  the  eldest  of 
the  eight  children  of  Jesse  Corwin,  and  his  wife  Kezia  Case.  His 
parents  had  been  married  on  Long  Island,  and  moved  tp*New  Jersey 
soon  after.  Near  the  commencement  of  the  revolutionary  war  the 
family  removed  to  Fayette  county,  in  western  Pennsylvania,  and 
here  on  April  8th,  1782,  Matthias  married  Patience  Halleck,  who 
was  born  in  the  same  year  as  himself.  The  mother  of  Thomas  Cor 
win  belonged  to  an  intellectual  family,  and  from  Jher  it  has  been  V 
claimed  the  orator  inherited  much  of  his  genius.  Her  married  life 
continued  thirty-six  years,  and  until  her  death  at  Lebanon,  Ohio,  in 
the  fifty -seventh  year  of  her  age.  She  was  J;he_  mother  of  nine 
children,  and  was  the  companion  of  her  husband  in  the  establish 
ment  of  three  homes  in  the  forest,  two  in  Kentucky  and  one  in 
Oliio.  She  should  be  remembered  as  one  of  the  pioneer  wqrnen 
of  the  Ohio  valley  who  patiently  endured  the  privations  and  hard 
ships  of  a  life  in  the  wilderness. 

In  1785  the  Corwin  family  removed  to  Kentucky.  Matthias 
first  settled  in  Mason  county,  but  afterwards  in  Bourbon  county, 
where  his  distinguished  son  was  borji  on  the  2&th  -Df_J-uly,  1794^ 
At  this  time  many  of  the  settlers  in  Kentucky  were  discouraged  on 
account  of  defects  in  the  titles  to  their  lands,  and  large  numbers  of 
them  crossed  the  Ohio  to  find  homes  in  the  Northwest  Territory. 
In  1798  Matthias  Corwin,  with  his  family  of  six  children,  his  nvid- 
owed  mother  and  most  of  his  brothers  and  sisters,  moved  again  and 
established  himself  in  the  Miami  valley,  near  where  Lebanon  now 
stands.  He  was,  a  widely  trusted  man  of  affairs,  and  after  the  forma 
tion  of  a  state  government  and  the  people  were  permitted  to  elect 

(5) 


6  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

their  own  officers,  was  repeatedly  chosen  to  important  public  posi 
tions.  He  was  elected  one  of  the  first  justices  of  the  peace  in  War 
ren-county,  a  member  of  the  first  board  of  county  commissioners, 
and  representative  in  the  legislature  by  annual  elections  for  ten  years. 
He  was  speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives  in  18JL5jmd  1824, 
and  an  associate  judge  of  the  court  of  common  pleas  from  1816  to 
1-S23.  To  this  last  position  he  was  chosen  by  the  legislature.  He 
was  also  appointed  by  the  governor  one  of  the  appraisers  of  dam 
ages  resulting  from  the  construction  of  the  Miami  canal,  and  a  trus- 
tee  of  Miami-LIawersity.  These  public  stations,  with  which  he  was 
honored  without  his  own  seeking,  gh^w,  that  ^  ^arl  *•!*»  rnrifidaoce 
and  respect  of  hjgupeifrhbors  and  arnnaintanrpc;  The  following  facts, 
illustrative  of  his  character,  are  derived  chiefly  from  Dunlevy's  His 
tory  of  the  Miami  Baptist  Association: 

Judge  Corwin  was  a  man  of  sound  common  sease,-and  his  judg 
ment  in  the  common  affairs  of  life  was  frequently^saught  by  the 
pioneers  among  whom  his  life  was  passed.  He  had  only  an  ordi 
nary  English  education,  and  made  no  pretensions  to  a  knowledge  of 
literature  or  science,  but  he  possessesed  a  discriminating  mind  that 
enabled  him  to  distinguish  pretended  from  real_scjence.  For  an 
ostentatious  display  of  learning  or  false  pretense  to  superior  knowl 
edge  he  had  an  instinctive  contempt. 

He  was  through  life  distinguished  for  his  probity.  He  carried 
his  notions  of  honesty  much  further  than  men  generally  do,  con 
demning  every  shade  of  concealment  or  act  calculated  to  deceive,  as 
no  better  than  direct  fraud.  All  speculation,  in  the  common  accep 
tation  of  the  term,  was  in  his  view  wrong..  He  lived  as  a  matter  of 
choice  on  a  farm,  and  took  great  pleasure  in  making  it  a  pleas 
ant  home.  In  his  habits  he  was  industrious,  regular  and  abstemious,- 
and  did  not  permit  any  under  his  control  to  spend  time  idly. 

He  was  always  a  peacemaker,  and  often  selected  as  an  arbiter 
to  settle  disputes  between  neighbors.  All  had  the  fullest  confidence 
in  his  integrity.  The  office  of  justice  of  the  peace  he  restored  to 
its  original  intention  of  settling  disputes,  as  well  as  constraining 
peace,  and  sometimes  to  effect  this  object  he  resorted  to  measures, 
whichj,  if  not  strictly  legal,  were  always  really  just.  It  is  told  of 
him  that  a  suit  once  being  brought  before  him  by  a  man  who  had 
been  grossly  defrauded  in  a  trade  of  watches,  he  required  both  of 
the  watches  to  be  placed  on  the  table  before  him  as  the  evidence  was 
given,  and,  the  fraud  being  palpable,  as  he  gave  his  decision  he  took 


THE    FATHER.  7 

up  the  two  watches,  declared  the  contract  of  exchange  void  on 
account  of  fraud,  and  then  restored  to  each  his  original  watch. 

Judge  Cnrwin  was  a,  rnernhpr  nf  t^gjggjjjjjf  gfaiigelf  at   T  *^"^" 

for  a  period  of  thirty  years.  During  most  of  that  time  he  was  the 
princip_aLand  most  active  deacon  of  that  church.  When  at  home  he 
was  always  at  his  post,  and  so  constant  was  he  in  attendance  at  the 
mppHngg  that  if  he  was  at  any  time  missed  when  at  home  it  was 
known  that  something  unusual  had  detained  him.  He  was  frequently 
one  of  the  messengers  of  the  church  in  the  association,  often  a  mes 
senger  of  the  association  to  some  corresponding  body.  In  the  min 
utes  of  the  Miami  Association,  the  name  of  no  layman  occurs  so 
frequently  as  that  of  Matthias  Corwin.  As  in  society,  so  in  the 
church  of  which  he  was  so  long  a  member,  the  greatest  confidence 
was  placed  in  him  and  much  deference  was  yielded  to  his  opinions. 
He  possessed  that  firmness  and  independence  of  mind  which  led  him 
to  investigate  all  opinions  for  himself  before  he  adopted  them.  He 
was,  therefore,  slow  to  receive  any  new  dogma  on  any  subject. 

He  is  described  as  above  the  medium  height,  very  stout,  with 
dar^c  skin,  black  hair  and  black  eyes.  He  dj^d  of  bilious  f^ver 
September  4th,  1829,  in  the  sixty-ninth  year  of  his  age.  The  fol 
lowing  is  an  extract  from  an  obituary  notice  of  Matthias  Corwin, 
which  is  believed  to  have  been  written  by  his  intimate  personal 
friend,  Judge  Francis  Dunlevy: 

"Judge  Corwin,  no  doubt,  partook  of  the  frailties  belonging  to  human 
ity,  but  we  think  we  have  never  known  one  within  the  range  of  our  knowl 
edge  who  had  fewer  faults.  If  we  should  search  for  them  we  know  not 
where  we  would  find  one.  He  was  not  great  nor  learned,  nor  possessed  of 
any  dazzling  talents  to  attract  the  admiration  of  the  world ;  but  he  had  quali 
ties  much  more  enviable  and  enduring.  Such  was  the  candor,  the  mildness, 
the  uniformity  of  his  conduct  and  so  unexceptionable  his  walk  and  conversa 
tion,  that  even  amidst  party  strite  and  sectarian  controversy,  he  never  knew 
an  enemy.  By  all  his  name  was  respected,  by  those  who  knew  him  best  and 
longest,  we  might  say,  venerated." 

After  the  death  of  his  wife,  Patience,  Matthias  Corwin  married 
Mrs.  Elizabeth  Corbly,  January  2nd,  1820,  by  whom  there  were  no 
children.  Below  are  given  the  names  and  the  dates  of  the  births  of 
his  nine  children,  some  of  whom  were  born  in  Pennsylvania,  some  in 
Kentucky  and  some  in  Ohio. 

Elizabeth,  born  January  27th,  1783. 
Benjamin,  born  October  28th,  1785. 


8  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

Matthias,  born  September  agth,  1789. 
Mary,  born  December  4th,  1791. 
Thomas,  born  July  29th,  1794. 
Jesse,  born  June  3oth,  1797. 
Rhoda,  born  November  4th,  1799. 
Phebe,  born  August  9th,  1802. 
Amelia,  born  March  gth,  1804. 

Three  of  the  sons  of  Matthias  Corwin  became  lawyers.  Mat 
thias,  after  his  admission  to  the  bar,  became  clerk  of  the  court  of 
common  pleas ;  he  was  also  a  captain  in  the  war  of  1812 ;  he  died  in 
1822,  aged  thirty-three  years.  Jesse  was  a  lawyer  at  Hamilton,  and 
served  as  representative  in  the  legislature  of  Ohio  from  Butler 
county  in  1831. 


THE  TURTLECREEK  VALLEY  AND  ITS  PIONEERS. 


The  Corwins  were  among  the  earliest  pioneers  on  the  Turtle- 

stream  wh?'c.h  pmptip^  infn  the  Little  Miami  after  winding 
for  a  dozen  miles  through  a  valley  unsurpassed^  in  richness  and 
natural  beauty  At  the  confluence  of  two  branches  of  this  stream 
is  Lebanon,  the  seat  of  justice  of  Warren  county,  around  .whjch 
to-day  jinely  cultivated  farms,  comfortable  farm  houses,  good  grav 
eled  roads  and  beautiful  scenery  attest  the  foresight  of  the  men  who 
selected  this  valley  for  their  homes  when  it  was  covered  with  the 
primeval  forest. 

Judge  John  Cleves  Symmes,  of  New  Jersey,  contracted  with 
the  Colonial  Congress  for  the  purchase  of  all  the  lands  between  the 
Miamis  at  66§  cents  per  acre,  and  when  his  lands  were  surveyed  the 
Turtlecreek  valley  fell  in  the  third  range  of  townships,  called  the 
Military  Range  because  it  was  to  be  paid  for  by  military  land  war 
rants  granted  for  services  in  the  revolutionary  war.  In^this  range 
are  Hamilton,  Monroe,  the  lands  of  the  Shakers  of  Union  Village, 
Lebaooji_and  South  Lebanon.  The  fertility  of  this  range  was  dis 
covered  by  Judge  Symmes  in  an  early  exploration,  and  described  by 
hkn  in  a  letter  to  General  Jonathan  Dayton,  his  associate  in  his 
great  land  speculation.  No  part  of  Symmes's  extensive  purchase 
became  more  famous  for  the  natural  excellence  of  its  soil  than  the 
valley  of  the  Turtlecreek. 

Ichabod  Corwin,  uncle  of  Thomas,  was  the  first  white  man  jto 
settle  with  his  family  where  Lebanon  now  stands.  He  had  first  seen 
and  admired  this  region  while  serving  in  a  military  expedition  from 
Kentucky  against  the  Indians,  and  he  purchased  a  tract  on  the  north 
branch  of  Turtlecreek  for  his  future  home  before  the  Indian  wars  had 
ended.  After  the  treaty  of  peace  at  Ft.  Greenville  he  erected  his 
cabin,  and  in  March,  1796,  brought  his  family  to  their  home  in  the 
wilderness.  In  1798  Matthias  Corwin,  father  of  Thomas,  came  from 
Kentucky  and  settled  one-half  mile  from  his  brother,  his  widowed 

(9) 


10  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

mother,  brothers  and  sisters  accompanying  him.  Thomas  was  at 
this  time  four  years  of  age.  It  is  told  that  when  the  pioneers  from 
miles  around  assembled  ta  raise  the  cabin  of  the  newly  arrived 
immigrants,  Matthias  took  his  gun  and  going  but  a  short  distance  in 
the  woods  killed  a  supply  of  wild  turkeys  for  the  bounteous  dinner 
always  prepared  on  such  occasions.  The  wild  deer  were  common. 
The  next  spring  a  band  of  Indians  encamped  on  the  hill  side  not  far 
from  the  Corwin  home,  and  the  red  men  were  not  infrequently  seen  in 
the  vicinity  for  several  succeeding  years.  They  respected  the  treaty 
of  peace  so  far  as  to  refrain  from  murder,  but  they  often  stole 
horses.  In  the  summer  of  1796  Ichabod  Corwin  had  all  his  horses 
stolen  by  the  Indians.  His  first  crop  of  corn  was  cultivated  with 
oxen,  and  though  it  grew  amid  the  roots  and  stumps  of  a  new  clear 
ing,  such  was  the  fertility  of  the  soil  that  it  yielded  one  hundred 
bushels  to  the  acre. 

The  father  of  Thomas  Corwin  was  a  poor  man.  He  had  con 
tracted  for  his  farm  when  land  could  be  bought  for  less  than  a  dollar 
an  acre  and  on  easy  payments,  yet  he  purchased  only  one  quarter  of 
a  section,  when  many  of  the  settlers  bought  an  entire  section,  and  it 
seems  that  he  did  not  complete  his  payments  for  two  years  after  his 
removal  to  his  new  home.  The  date  of  his  deed  is  July  1st,  1800. 
His  land  was  sold  to  him  by  Major  Benjamin  Stites,  the  explorer  of 
the  lands  between  the  Miamis,  who  gave  Symmes  much  information 
concerning  them  and  who  became  the  owner  of  several  thousand 
acres  on  the  Little  Miami.  In  this  deed,  which  was  recorded  in  Cin 
cinnati,  Benjamin  Stites,  of  Hamilton  county  in  the  Territory  North 
west  of  the  river  Ohio,  conveyed  to  Matthias  Corwin,  of  the  same 
county  and  territory,  in  consideration  of  one  hundred  dollars,  one 
hundred  and  sixty  acres.  The  land  thus  conveyed  is  situated  about 
one  half  mile  north  east  of  Lebanon  and  was  the  boyhood  home  of 
Thomas  Corwin. 

At  the  time  of  the  removal  of  the  father  of  Thomas  Corwin  to 
his  new  home,  it  was  known  that  the  treaty  of  Ft.  Greenville  had 
secured  permanent  peace,  and  the  tide  of  immigration  so  long  de 
layed  by  savage  hostility  flowed  in  and  before  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century  the  pioneer's  ax  rang  out  in  every  part  of  the 
Turtlecreek  valley.  In  September,  1802,  one  month  before  the 
election  of  delegates  to  the  convention  to  form  a  state  constitution, 
the  town  of  Lebanon  was  plotted,  Ichabod  Corwin  being  one  of  the 
four  original  proprietors  of  the  first  one  hundred  lots.  In  order  to 


THE    TURTLECREEK    VALLEY    AND    ITS    PIONEERS.  11 

secure  the  seat  of  justice  the  owners  of  the  land  upon  which  the 
town  was  laid  out  donated  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  one  half  the 
lots  to  aid  in  the  erection  of  a  court  house  and  jail. 

The  settlers  in  the  forest  among  whom  Thomas  Corwin  grew 
up  belonged  for  the  most  part  to  the  middle  class  and  were  men  of 
more  than  average  intelligence  and  worth.  He  learned  to  respect 
the  pioneers  of  the  west  and  in  the  halls  of  Congress  paid  more 
than  one  eloquent  tribute  to  their  sturdy  virtues.  His  boyhood  home 
was  in  a  wild  country.  The  rich  and  exuberant  garb  which  nature 
gave  it,  while  attesting  the  fertility  of  the  soil,  greatly  augmented 
the  labor  of  the  settler.  The  noble  trees  of  the  primitive  forests 
stood  as  enemies  against  which  a  war  of  extermination  was  to  be 
waged.  An  undergrowth  of  spice  bushes  was  spread  over  all  the 
richer  parts,  almost  as  thick  and  impenetrable  as  the  canebrake  of 
Kentucky,  and,  like  the  cane,  it  disappeared  with  the  advance  of 
civilization.  The  gathering  of  brush  into  heaps  for  burning  was 
among  the  earliest  of  the  outdoor  labors  of  the  settler's  boy,  and  his 
hands  and  cheeks  were  often  smutted  with  the  smoke  and  coal  of 
the  clearing. 

To  form  a  path  for  his  children  to  the  school-house  the  pioneer 
on  Turtlecreek  sometimes  harnessed  a  horse  to  a  log  and  drove 
through  the  tall  weeds  and  bushes.  Smooth  foot-paths  winding 
through  the  deep  woods  led  from  one  cabin  door  to  another.  When 
a  settler  was  sick  his  neighbors  aided  him  with  their  gratuitous  labor, 
planting  his  corn,  tilling  or  gathering  it  for  him,  and  in  winter  sup 
plying  his  family  with  firewood.  Cincinnati,  thirty  miles  distant, 
was  the  nearest  point  at  which  merchandise  could  be  purchased ;  it 
was  also  the  seat  of  justice  until  the  organization  of  a  state  govern 
ment  and  the  post-office  for  all  the  Turtlecreek  valley  until  1804. 
All  the  houses  on  Turtlecreek  in  the  early  boyhood  of  Thomas  Cor 
win  were  of  logs.  The  first  brick  residence  in  Lebanon  was  not 
built  until  1806,  when  he  was  twelve  years  old.  The  first  school- 
house  he  attended  was  of  round  logs  put  up  by  the  neighbors  in  a 
single  day,  with  no  tool  but  the  ax,  and  stood  a  mile  from  his 
home.  The  first  churches  in  the  valley  were  more  pretentious  and 
made  of  logs  hewed  inside  and  out,  and  were  comfortable  places  of 
worship,  warm  in  winter  and  cool  in  summer. 


THE  WAGON  BOY  AND  HIS  EDUCATION. 


The  most  interesting  chapter  in  the  biography  of  a  distinguished 
man  is  the  story  of  his  boyhood  and  education.  Especially  is  this 
true  of  one  who  rose  to  eminence  without  a  liberal  education. 
The  three  American  statesmen  who,  without  the  aid  of  the  academy 
or  college,  became  most  distinguished  for  popular  eloquence  were 
Patrick  Henry,  Henry  Clay  and  Thomas  CorWin.  Of  these  three 
orators  we  have  the  fullest  and  most  trustworthy  account  of  the 
boyhood,  youth  and  education  of  Corwin,  and  for  its  fullness  and  trust 
worthiness  we  are  indebted  chiefly  to  Anthony  Howard  Dunlevy,  of 
Lebanon,  who  was  the  author  of  a  newspaper  sketch  of  Corwin, 
published  in  1840,  and  of  various  sketches  of  pioneer  history  in 
which  mention  is  made  of  the  Corwin  family;  he  also  read  at  a  meet 
ing  of  the  bar  at  Lebanon  after  the  death  of  Corwin  a  paper  giving 
in  some  detail  the  early  life  and  the  literary  and  legal  education  of 
his  departed  friend.  Dunlevy  and  Corwin  were  the  sons  of  neigh 
bors;  their  families  were  intimate  and  attended  the  same  church ; 
they  were  nearly  of  the  same  age;  they  attended  the  same  primary 
school,  and  as  young  men  were  members  of  the  same  debating  clubs 
and  literary  societies,  studied  law  at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same 
office,  were  admitted  to  the  bar  on  the  same  day,  began  to  practice 
in  the  same  courts  and  were  life-long  and  intimate  friends. 

In  his  fifth  year  Thomas  Corwin  attended  his  first  school  in  the 
first  school-house  erected  on  Turtlecreek.  It  was  taught  then  and 
for  a  short  time  only  by  Francis  Dunlevy,  afterwards  common  pleas 
judge.  For  some  years  afterward,  young  Thomas  had  the  advan- 
tage_of_only  occasional  schools,  taught  by  self-appointed  teachers,  for 
the  most  part  in  the  winter  months,  in  a  log  -school-house  erected 
not  by  taxation  or  subscription  but  by  the  labor  of  the  settlers,  its 
ample  fire  place  occupying  the  greater  portion  of  one  end  of  the 
structure.  In  1806,  Rev.  Jacob  Grigg,  a  Baptist  clergyman,  who 


THE    WAGON    BOY   AND    HIS    EDUCATION.  13 

had  received  a  good  education  in  England,  opened  a  school  which 
afforded  better  instruction  for  the  youth  of  Lebanon,  the  town  then 
numbering  some  forty  families.  Thomas  \vas_at  this  time  about 
twelve  years  old  and  in  the  two  years  this  school  was  continued 
attended  in  ihe  winter_only>  his  ^servkes-  being  .-required  at  home 
during  all  the  busy  seasons  of  farm  labor.  In  these  two  winters  he 
received  the  greater  portion  of  all  the  education  he  ever  acquired 
at  school. 

This  teacher  encouraged  school  exhibitions,  in  which  recitations 
and  dialogues  were  given,  exercises  in  which  both  pupils  and  parents 
became  interested.  For  the  want  of  a  hall  a  sort  of  bower  was 
erected  in  front  of  the  little  school-house  to  serve  as  a  stage  for  the 
young  performers.  In  these  exercises,  according  to  Dunlevy,  who 
was  a  pupil  in  the  school,  was  first  noticed  Thomas's  talent  for  pub 
lic,  speaking,  his  fine  elocution  attracting  attention..  Jn  a  dialogue 
found  in  the  school  books  entitled  "Dr.  Neverout  and  Dr.  Doubty," 
taking  the  part  of  the  former  and  his  brother,  Matthias,  the  latter, 
he  gained  universal  applause.  Eroni  the  time  of  his  attendance  at 
this_school  lie  had  a  strong  desire  for  a  liberal  education,  but  his 
father  had  already  determined  to  give  an  elder  son,  Matthias,  an 
education  to  fit  him  for  a  learned  profession,  and  he  felt  that  he 
could  make  a  scholar  of  but  one  son.  Thomas  was,  therefore,  kept 
at  .home  to  work  while  Matthias  was  sent  to  school.  This  was  a 
severe  trial  for  Thomas,  but  he  submitted  and  labored  faithfully  on 
.the  farm. 

Th_e  elder  brother  received  a  good  education.  An  almanac  for 
the  year  1812,  printed  at  Lebanon,  contains  on  the  title  page  the 
name  of  Matthias  Corwin,  jun.,  as  the  author  of  the  astronomical 
calculations.  The  books  with  which  Matthias  was  supplied  while  at 
school  served  Thomas  a  useful  purpose  in  his  self  education,  and  he 
made  diligent  use  of  them  in  his  leisure  hours.  He  also  early 
formed  a  taste  for  reading  good  literature. 

Besides  his  labor  on  the  farm,  he  was  often  engaged  in  wagon 
ing  the  produce  of  the  farm  to  Cincinnati,  and  on  the  return  trip 
goods  for  the  Lebanon  merchants.  He  drove  his  two  or  four  horse 
team  with  skill  over  the  bridgeless  and  ungraveled  roads,  which  in 
the  wet  season  often  became  almost  impassable.  Five  or  six 
wagons  would  often  travel  together,  and  when  a  team  was  stalled  in 
the  mud  young  Corwin's  skill  would  be  called  into  requisition.  The 
drivers  would  camp  out  over  night,  and  the  wit  and  humor  of  the 


14,  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

dark-complexioned  wagon  boy  enlivened  the  early  hours  of  the  night 
around  the  camp  fire.  His  nickname,  "the  wagon  boy,"  which  was 
supposed  in  a  political  campaign  to  win  for  him  popular  favor  even 
more  than  "the  mill-boy  of  the  slashes"  did  for  Henry  Clay,  was 
obtained  chiefly  from  his  services  as  the  driver  of  a  wagon  load  of 
provisions  for  the  army  in  the  war  of  1812. 

When  the  second  war  was  declared  against  England  he  was 
nearly  eighteen  years  of  age,  and  was  a  witness  of  stirring  times  at 
Jiis  home  in  its  opening  scenes.  Lebanon  was  the  rendezvous  for 
troops  raised  from  the  counties  of  Hamilton,  Butler,  Warren  and 
Clermont.  Four  companies  of  riflemen,  one  of  artillery  and  one  of 
light  infantry  were  assembled  in  the  town  in  the  month  of  August, 
1812,  whence  they  took  up  the  line  of  march  for  the  Indian  frontier 
at  Urbana.  Matthias  Corwin,  jun.,  commanded  the  company  of 
light  infantry.  Scarcely  had  the  troops  left  the  little  village  when 
news  was  spread  over  the  country  of  Hull's  surrender  at  Detroit  and 
that  the  whole  frontier  of  Ohio  was  exposed  to  the  attack  of  the 
combined  British  and  Indian  forces.  This  intelligence  produced  con 
sternation  throughout  the  Miami  valley,  but  it  animated  the  whole 
population  with  a  military  spirit.  In  a  few  days  a  large  and  undis 
ciplined  multitude  assembled  on  the  frontier  and  General  Harrison 
took  command.  Farmers  were  appealed  to  for  wagon  loads  of  pro 
visions  for  this  large  and  hastily  gathered  military  force.  Thomas 
Corwin  hastened  with  his  father's  wagon  and  team,  and  reached  the 
army  when  encamped  on  the  waters  of  the  St.  Mary's  which  empties 
into  the  Maumee. 

This  wagon  driving  incident  in  the  youth  of  Corwin  was  fre 
quently  alluded  to  in  his  political  career.  In  the  campaign  of  1840 
the  Whig  orators  of  Ohio  were  able  to  touch  the  sympathies  of  a 
grateful  people  by  allusions  to  the  humble  but  useful  and  patriotic 
service  of  the  boy  who  drove  his  wagon  load  of  supplies  to  relieve 
the  army  which  protected  the  northern  and  western  frontier  from  the 
ravages  of  a  savage  foe,  and  the  happy  coincidence  that  the  wagon 
boy  was  a  candidate  for  governor  and  the  commander  of  the  army  a 
candidate  for  president.  At  the  great  mass  convention  held  in 
Columbus  February  22nd,  1840,  which  nominated  Corwin  for  gov 
ernor,  Gen.  Charles  Anthony,  of  Springfield,  an  effective  orator, 
aroused  much  enthusiasm  by  the  following  passage  in  his  speech : 

"When  the  brave  Harrison  and  his  gallant  army  were  exposed  to  the 
dangers  and  hardships   of  the   northwestern    frontier — separated    from    the 


THE    WAGON    BOY    AND    HIS    EDUCATION.  15 

interior,  on  which  they  were  dependent  for  their  supplies,  by  the  brush  wood 
and  swamps  of  the  St.  Mary's  country,  through  which  there  was  no  road — 
where  each  wagoner  had  to  make  his  way  wherever  he  could  find  a  passa 
ble  place,  leaving  traces  and  routes,  which  are  still  visible  for  a  space  of 
several  days'  journey  in  length — there  was  one  team  which  was  managed  by 
a  little,  dark-complexioned,  hardy  looking  lad,  apparently  about  fifteen  or 
sixteen  years  old,  who  was  familiarly  called  TOM  CORWIN.  Through  all  of 
that  service  he  proved  himself  a  good  '  whip'  and  an  excellent  '  reinsman.' 
And  in  the  situation  in  which  we  are  about  to  place  him,  he  will  be  found 
equally  skillful." 

Thomas  continued  his  labors  on  his  father's  farm  for  some  two 
years  after  his  return  from  the  frontier.  An  injury  to  his  knee 
received  while  driving  a  team  rendered  him  incapable  of  physical 
labor  for  a  long  time,  durirfg  which  he  had  recourse  to  his  books, 
and  to  them  he  devoted  with  close  application  the  months  which 
would  otherwise  have  been  tedious.  Before  attaining  his  majority 
he  acquired  some  knowledge  of  Latin  and  other  branches  of  academ 
ical  learning,  and  this  was  doubtless  attained  from  the  use  at  home 
of  his  brother's  text  books.  He  early  had  a  thirst  for  general 
'knowledge,  and,  according  to  Dunlevy,  "he  was  always  engaged  in 
studying  some  book  or  subject,  whether  at  school  or  not,  when  not 
employed  in  other  business.  This  continued  to  be  his  habit  through 
early  life,  and  he  never  lost  more  time  in  amusement  or  company 
than  necessary  courtesy  required." 

His  surroundings  were  not  unfavorable  to  his  mental  growth, 
Only  a  mile  from  his  home  was  the  court-house,  where  he  could 
sometimes  hear  able  lawyers.  The  Lebanon  library  society,  char 
tered  in  1811,  with  John  McLean  (afterwards  Justice  McLean)  as 
one  of  its  directors,  had  a  small  but  valuable  collection  of  books. 
The  village  debating  society  kept  up  intellectual  activity.  The  elder 
Corwin  was  at  this  period  almost  constantly  a  member  of  the  legis 
lature,  and  sometimes  speaker  of  the  House,  and  doubtless  encour 
aged- his  children  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge. 

About  the  time  he  attained  his  majority  he  determined  to  be 
come  a  lawyer  and  entered  the  office  of  the  clerk  of  court,  then 
under  the  charge  of  his  brother,  Matthias,  and  soon  after  com 
menced  the  regular  study  of  the  law  under  the  direction  of  Joshua 
Collett.  His  fellow  student,  Dunle^^y^ears  testimony  to  the  faith 
fulness  with  which  he  pursued  his  MB  of  the  prescribed  course  in 
law,  and  continued  his  reading  of  hiHBy  and  the  English  classics  in 


16  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

prose  and  poetry.  He  seldom  permitted  the  social  gatherings  of  the 
young  to  win  him  away  from  his  studies.  Almost  the  only  recrea- 
tionjof  the  law  student  was  found  in  attendance,  on  winter  evenings, 
at  the  debating  societies.  Such  societies  existed  in  almost  every 
neighborhood  at  that  time,  and  in  Lebanon  all  men  of  talent  and  lit 
erary  taste  were  members  of  one  or  more  of  them.  Lawyers^ 
judges,  ministers,  physicians,  farmers  and  mechanics  participated  in 
the  debates.  In  these  societies  young  Corwin  "gained  for  himself 
a  high  reputation  for  youthful  eloquence."  He  was  admitted  to  the 
bar  at  Lebanon  by  the  supreme  court,  which  held  a  term  once 
each  year  in  every  county.  A.  H.  Dunlevy  says: 

"He  confined  himself  to  his  studies  with  an  ardor  and  industry  unus 
ual  even  in  that  day.  By  this  persevering,  industry  he  not  only  read  the 
usual  course  of  law  prescribed  at  that  time,  and  which  was  more  extensive 
than  has  been  required  in  later  years,  but  he  made  himself  master  of 
English  history,  and,  in  a  good  degree,  of  the  English  prose  and  poetic 
classics.  At  the  May  term  of  the  supreme  court  in  1817,  we  applied  for 
admission  to  the  bar.  It  was  then  the  practice  of  the  court  to  examine  appli 
cants  themselves,  though  they  frequently  called  on  members  of  the  bar  to 
take  part  in  asking  questions.  For  this  purpose  we  were  taken  into  a  large 
room  of  the  principal  hotel  of  the  place  in  the  evening  after  the  adjournment 
of  the  court,  and,  there  to  my  surprise,  I  found  quite  a  gathering  of 'ladies 
and  gentlemen  who  had  come  to  witness  the  examination.  Mr.  Corwin's 
reputation  had  brought  them  there.  Under  the  circumstances  the  examina 
tion  was  a  thorough  one  and  we  were  subjected  to  a  severe  ordeal.  But  Mr. 
Corwin  at  least  passed  it  in  triumph.  His  first  speech  before  the  court  was 
made  soon  after  and  was  a  pledge  of  his  future  distinction  at  the  bar." 


THE  LAWYER. 


At  the  time  of  his  admission  to  the  bar  Corwin  was  nearly 
twenty-three.  He  was  doubtless  well  prepared  for  his  profession, 
not  only  by  industrious  and  thorough  work  as  a  law  student  and 
his  services  in  the  office  of  the  clerk  of  court,  but  by  his  extended 
course  of  reading,  which  made  him  a  well  and  even  a  liberally  edu 
cated  man.  Lawyers  at  that  time,  even  in  the  western  woods, 
were  fond  of  illustrations  from  history  and  polite  literature,  of 
repeating  Latin  maxims  to  the  court  and  adorning  their  speeches  to 
the  jury  with  quotations  from  classic  authors;  and  in  the  popular 
address  and  oration  sometimes  expected  of  them  they  aimed  at  a 
style  of  rhetorical  finish,  not  often  attempted  by  their  modern  suc 
cessors.  Mr.  Corwin  had  already  made  a  reputation  as  a  fine  public 
speaker  in  the  debating  society  and  he  at  once  took  a  high  position 
as  an  advocate  and  soon  became  well  known  in  all  the  courts  he 
attended  as  a  brilliant  and  able  lawyer.  He  had  traveled  over  a 
hard  and  toilsome  road  in  preparing  himself  for  the  law,  but  he  was 
spared  the  trying  ordeal  of  patient  waiting  and  slow  climbing 
upward  after  his  admission. 

The  court  of  common  pleas  under  the  first  constitution  of  Ohio 
was  composed  of  a  president  judge  in  each  circuit,  and  three  associ 
ate  judges  in  each  county,  all  chosen  by  the  legislature.  The  associate 
judges  were  farmers  or  other  laymen,  appointed  on  the  theory  that 
the  bench  should  have  upon  it  one  member  of  the  legal  profession  to 
decide  questions  of  law  and  three  others  not  lawyers  to  furnish  com 
mon  sense.  It  may  be  here  stated,  however,  that  Francis  Dunlevy, 
the  president  judge  first  elected  by  the  legislature  for  the  circuit 
embracing  the  southwestern  third  of  the  state,  and  who  had  pre 
sided  in  the  courts  at  Lebanon  until  about  the  time  of  Mr.  Corwin's 
admission  to  the  bar,  was  not  a  regularly  educated  lawyer,  and  was 
admitted  to  practice  after  his  retirement  from  the  bench ;  he  was, 
3  (17) 


18  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

however,  a  man  of  liberal  education  and  had  served  in  the  territorial 
legislature  and  in  the  convention  which  formed  the  state  constitution. 
When  Mr.  Corwin  commenced  practice  his  preceptor  in  the  law, 
Joshua  Collett,  was  president  judge,  his  father  one  of  the  associate 
judges  and  his  brother  clerk  of  court. 

In  Jess  than  a  year  after  his  admission  to  the  bar  Mr.  Corwin 
was  appointed  by  the  court  prosecuting  attorney  of -his  county,  and 
he  continued  to  serve  in  that  capacity  for  ten  years.  The  compensa 
tion  allowed  by  the  court  for  prosecuting  pleas  in  behalf  of  the  state 
was  meager,  but  the;  office  brought  him  into  contact  with  the  members 
of  .a  grand  jury  each  term  and  thus  served  to  give  him  a  wide 
acquaintance  with  the  leading  men  in  all  parts  of  the  county.  He 
also  learned  much  of  men  of  a  different  character.  In  his  speech 
^against  corporal  punishment,  delivered  in  the  legislature  in  1822,  he 
said:  "In  the  prosecution  and  sometimes  in  the  defense  of  criminals 
I  have  had  opportunities  of  viewing  and  considering  the  occult  and 
secret  sources  of  crime  more  distinctly  than  I  possibly  could  had  I 
been  an  unconcerned  observer.  I  will  venture  to  assert  that  there  is 
not  in  the  whole  circle  of  society  a  situation  so  favorable  to  the  dis 
covery  of  the  true  nature  and  causes  of  crime  as  a  practice  at  the  bar 
of  a  court  of  criminal  jurisdiction." 

Mr.  Corwin  rode  the  circuit  of  the  courts  of  his  judicial  district, 
embracing  five  or  six  counties,  as  was  the  uniform  custom  of  the 
lawyers  of  his  time,  whether  they  were  old  in  the^profession  and 
had  an  established  practice  or  were  young,  briefless  and  penniless 
members  in  search  of  business.  They  traveled  on  horse-back, 
sometimes  several  of  them  together,  with  their  saddle-bags  under 
them,  an  overcoat  and  umbrella  strapped  behind  the  saddle,  and 
leggings,  often  well  spattered  with  mud,  tied  with  strings  above 
and  below  the  knees.  Riding  the  circuit  became  less  common  in  the 
{decade  between  1830  and  1840  and  finally  ceased.  Subsequent  to 
1840  it  was  continued  only  by  the  older  lawyers  who  had  an  estab 
lished  practice  in  the  different  counties  of  the  circuit  which  made 
the  toilsome  journeyings  away  from  their  homes  and  families  remu 
nerative.  The  legal  business  at  each  seat  of  justice  came  to 
be  conducted  chiefly  by  resident  lawyers,  but  as  late  as  1843,  the 
year  succeeding  Mr.  Corwin's  retirement  from  the  office  of  governor, 
he  was  an  attorney  in  twelve  cases,  all  pending  at  the  same  time  in 
the  courts  of  Butler  county.  E.  D.  Mansfield,  in  his  "Personal 
Memories,"  narrates  the  following: 


THE    LAWYER.  19 

"  In  the  summer  of  1825  I  took  a  short  journey  through  the  Miami 
country  on  horseback.  I  was  riding  alone  in  a  piece  of  woods  between 
Hamilton  and  Lebanon  when  I  overtook  a  young  man  also  on  horseback. 
There  was  something  in  his  appearance  which  struck  my  attention.  He  was 
very  dark  in  complexion  and  hair,  with  a  sort  of  swarthy  look,  more  like  an 
Indian  than  the  whites.  He  was  full-fleshed,  with  a  quick,  piercing  eye  and 
a  pleasant  expression.  We  made  ourselves  known,  and  I  found  he  was  Cor- 
win,  afterwards  known  as  Tom  Corwin,  the  wagon  boy.  He  got  this  sobri 
quet  from  the  fact  that  he  had  driven  wagons  in  his  youth.  He  was  now  at 
the  bar  and  was  returning  from  the  court  at  Hamilton  to  his  home  at 
Lebanon." 

On  November  13th,  1822,  Mr.  Corwin  was  married  at  Lebanon 
ta  Miss  Sarah  Ross,  a  sister  of  Thomas  R.  Ross,  then  a  member  of 
congress.  His  position  at  the  bar  enabled  him  to  support  a  family 
in  comfort,  to  obtain  for  his  office  the  works  of  the  best  legal 
writers  of  his  time  and  to  build  up  gradually  a  fine  library  of  miscel 
laneous  books,  but  he  did  not  accumulate  much  of  worldly  goods. 
In  the  management  of  his  own  affairs  he  was  not  selfish  or  even 
prudent  and  he  did  not  have  the  skill  and  thrift  with  which  to  make 
his  professional  earnings  grow  into  an  ample  fortune.  He  never 
became  a  man  of  wealth. 

In  the  earlier  years  of  Mr.  Corwin's  practice  lawyers'  fees  were 
low  in  Ohio.  A  charge  of  a  hundred  dollars  for  an  attorney's  ser 
vices  in  a  single  case  was  rare;  one  of  a  thousand  dollars  almost 
unheard  of.  Ejectment  suits  which  most  frequently  arose  from 
^disputed  boundaries  in  the  Virginia  military  district  east  of  the 
Little  Miami,  were  perhaps  the  most  lucrative  part  of  his  early  practice. 
It  may  be  safely  assumed  that  at  that  time  seven  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars  was  above  rather  than  below  the  average  annual  income  of 
the  lawyers  practicing  at  Lebanon.  The  salary  of  the  president 
judge,  a  position  coveted  by  able  lawyers  in  full  practice,  was  8750 
from  the  organization  of  the  state  government  until  1816  when  it 
was  increased  to  $1,000. 

In  1830  attorneys  and  physicians  were  subject  to  a  tax  of  five 
mills  on  each  dollar  of  their  annual  income.  The  records  of  the 
county  commissioners  contain  a  list  of  the  attorneys  practicing  in 
Warren  county  that  year.  At  that  time  John  McLean  was  a  justice 
of  the  supreme  court  of  the  United  States;  Joshua  Collett,  judge  of 
the  supreme  court  of  Ohio;  and  George  J.  Smith,  president  judge 
of  the  court  of  common  pleas.  The  following  is  the  list  of  practic- 


20  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    COKAVIN. 

ing  attorneys:  Thomas  R.  Ross,  Phineas  Ross,  Benjamin  Collett, 
Thomas  Corwin,  Francis  Dunlevy,  A.  H.  Dunlevy,  William  McLean 
and  Jacoby  Hallack.  The  sum  of  $750  is  placed  opposite  each 
name  as  the  income  from  the  practice  of  law  for  the  year,  excepting 
those  of  Thomas  Corwin  and  Jacoby  Hallack,  the  income  for  the 
former  being  placed  at  $1,000,  and  that  of  the  latter  at  $500.  As 
the  figures  were  merely  estimates  by  the  commissioners,  and  not 
returns  made  by  the  attorneys  themselves,  they  lose  much  of  their 
value  as  evidences  of  the  real  profits  of  the  profession  at  that  time. 

For  about  a  dozen  years  Mr.  Corwin  devoted  himself  to  his 
profession  without  much  mixture  of  politics  with  law.  -Though  twice 
in  this  period  chosen  to  the  legislature,  he  was  elected  not  as  a  party 
candidate,  and  the  duties  of  the  office  required  only  a  stay  at  the 
state  capital  during  two  brief  sessions  of  the  general  assembly. 
After  his  election  to  congress,  in  1830,  he  was  more  of  a  public  man 
than  a  lawyer,  although  he  continued  to  practice  law  until  his  death, 
except  while  a  member  of  the  cabinet  and  minister  to  Mexico. 
With  all  his  brilliant  abilities  he  never  took  a  position  among  the 
truly  great  lawyers  of  the  nation.  What  would  have  been  his  rank 
in  his  profession  had  he  not  been  immersed  in  politics  is~only  a 
matter  of  speculation.  It  is  certain  that  in  a  dozen  years  his  fame 
as  an  advocate  was  wide  spread  over  his  state.  A  merely  profes 
sional  reputation  is  ephemeral.  The  fame  of  a  great  lawyer  who 
has  given  an  undivided  allegiance  to  his  profession  scarcely  survives 
one  generation,  and  the  name  of  Corwin  would  hardly  live  even  in 
tradition  had  he  not  become  a  great  political  orator  and  been  hon 
ored  with  high  public  stations. 

Mr.  Corwin's  distinction  at  the  bar  was  perhaps  chiefly  due  to 
his  remarkable  gifts  of  eloquence,  wit  and  humor;  but  he  was  also 
/  distinguished  for  a  native  keenness  of  discrimination  which  prevented 
him  from  using  any  authority  not  strictly  in  point,  or  any  evidence 
that  could  be  turned  against  him.  It  is  not  improbable  that  his 
readiness  in  speaking,  his  natural  brightness  of  intellect,  the  fascina 
tion  of  his  manner  and  his  infinite  humor,  all  tended  to  give  him  the 
reputation  of  a  brilliant  rather  than  an  able  and  learned  lawyer;  but 
on  great  occasions  he  could  bring  forth  in  his  arguments  to  the  court 
and  jury  a  wealth  of  legal  and  miscellaneous  learning  which  was  the 
result  of  laborious  study. 

In  his  demeanor  at  the  bar  he  did  not  forget  the  dignity  becom 
ing  a  court  of  justice.  Though  he  was  always  called  Tom  Corwin, 


THE    LAWYER.  21 

had  been  reared  among  pioneers  who  wore  rough  homespun  or 
buckskin  and  was  familiar  with  the  boisterous  hilarity  of  the  tavern, 
he  \vas  aKvays  a  gentleman.  He_  learned  to  be  careful  about  his 
apparel  and  at  least  after  he  acquired  distinction  was  generally  the 
best  dressed  man  in  the  court.  His  coat  was  of  rich,  plain  black ; 
his  waistcoat  frequently  of  fine  black  velvet  and  his  shirt-front 
ruffled  in  the  latest  style  of  the  times.  His  hair  was  carefully 
brushed  and  he  shaved  himself  every  day.  In  conducting  a  trial  he 
was  invariably  the  perfect  gentleman.  He  was  respectful  to  the 
court,  courteous  to  the  jury  and  kind  and  considerate  to  his  adver 
saries  and  the  witnesses.  There  is  abundance  of  evidence  that  his 
uniform  urbanity  in  the  court-room  was  noteworthy.  Judge  George 
J.  Smith,  of  Lebanon,  who  was  his  first  law  student,  as  a  lawyer 
tried  scores  of  cases  with  him,  and  as  a  judge  presided  in  the  courts 
in  which  he  practiced,  wrote  after  Corwin's  death : 

"  When  I  came  to  the  bar  in  1820  Mr.  Corwin  was  in  the  full  tide  of 
professional  success.  His  character  as  an  able  advocate  and  as  an  eloquent 
forensic  orator  was  already  well  established.  For  nearly  nine  years  we 
attended  the  same  courts,  and  our  friendship  became  warm  and  lasting.  In 
1829  the  young  man  whose  legal  education  he  had  superintended  was  ele 
vated  to  the  bench,  and  for  seven  years,  except  when  absent  on  public  busi 
ness,  he  regularly  practiced  in  the  courts  over  which  I  presided.  With  his 
professional  brethren,  his  deportment  was  always  genial,  kind  and  gentle 
manly.  On  no  occasion,  so  far  as  my  recollection  now  serves  me,  have  I 
seen  him  engaged  in  the  petty  squabbles — crimination  and  recrimination —  k 
from  which  the  bar,  unfortunately,  is  at  times  not  wholly  exempt.  His 
weapon  was  satire,  brilliant,  incisive  and  effective,  but  with  so  keen  an  edge 
that  it  left  no  sting  behind  it.  His-deportment  to  the  court  was  uniformly 
courteous,  deferential  and  respectful." 

He  did  not  often  accept  invitations  to  make  public  speeches. 
At  the  fourth  of  July  celebrations  in*  his  own  town  he  delivered  the 
oration  in  1822,  and  read  the  Declaration  of  Independence  in  1825. 
He  made  a  Masonic  address  at  Hamilton  on  St.  John's  day,  1826, 
and  addressed  the  Union  literary  society  of  Miami  University  at  the 
annual  commencement  exercises  September  28th,  1830.  His  speech 
in  the  legislature  against  the  bill  for  the  reinstatement  of  public 
whipping  as  a  penalty  for  petit  larceny  is  the  earliest  of  his  efforts 
which  have  been  preserved.  It  was  made  at  a  time  when  a  large 
portion  of  the  people  of  Ohio  who  had  come  from  states  which  re 
tained  whipping  as  a  punishment  for  stealing  looked  upon  it  as  the  nat- 


22  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

ural  and  obvious  penalty  for  this  offense ;  in  their  minds  it  was  insep 
arable  from  petit  larceny.  The  economy  of  the  whipping  post, 
which  would  relieve  the  tax-payers  from  the  cost  of  maintaining  cul 
prits  in  prison,  was  also  urged.  The  remarks  of  the  young  legisla 
tor  show  the  repugnance  of  refined  sensibilities  to  this  barbarous 
punishment,  as  well  as  a  philosophical  insight  into  the  nature  and 
objects  of  criminal  laws.  The  bill  was  defeated. 

As  he  rode  the  circuit  he.  not  only  earned  a  reputation  for  tal 
ents,  but  unconsciously  he  was  all  the  while  gaining  a  wonderful 
popularity.  He  was  one  of  whom  it  may  be  said  that  he  was  born 

i  i       __ 

o  be  popular,  and  he  could  not  help  attracting  the  love  and  regard 
of  the  people.  He  was  liked  by  judges,  lawyers,  farmers  and  inn 
keepers.  His  striking  and  intelligent  countenance  was  pleasing  and 
winning ;  he  was  always  polite  and  affable ;  his  social  qualities  were 
of  the  highest  order ;  the  finest  talker  of  his  time,  a  wonder 
ful  story  teller,  his  humor  inimitable,  his  genius  often  shining 
to  better  advantage  in  conversation  than  in  the  public  address,  he 
was  a  delightful  companion.  At  the  time  of  his  election  to  the  office 
of  governor  he  was  the  most  popular  man  in  Ohio.  The  qualities 
which  in  the  young  lawyer  attracted  regard  and  admiration  in  the 
social  circle  were  never  lost,  and,  on  the  last  night  of  his  life,  drew 
around  his  chair  to  hear  his  conversation  the  most  distinguished  men 
in  the  national  capital. 


BEGINNINGS  IN  POLITICS. 


In  1821,  four  years  after  he  commenced  the  practice  of  law, 
Mr.  Corwin  consented  for  the  first  time  to  be  a  candidate  at  the 
polls.  Nominations  by  the  caucus  or  convention  method  had  not 
yet  been  introduced  in  Ohi"  and  any  person  could  become  a  candi 
date  for  an  elective  office  by  the  simple  announcement  of  his  name. 
Mr.  Corwin  was  first  announced  with  his  consent  as  a  candidate  for 
representative  in  the  legislature  on  July  23rd,  1821,  in  the  Western 
Star,  the  only  newspaper  printed  in  his  county.  The  vote  he 
received  on  the  second  Tuesday  of  October  was  a  proof  of  his  popu 
larity  at  home.  There  were  six  candidates  for  the  two  seats  in  the 
lower  branch  of  the  legislature  to  which  the  county  was  entitled,  and 
Corwin  was  probably  the  youngest  of  them,  and  at  least  three  of  the 
candidates  had  already  served  in  the  legislature  and  were  among  the 
best  known  public  men  of  the  county.  Corwin  received  the  second 
highest  number  of  votes  and  the  next  year  he  and  his  co-representa 
tive  were  re-elected  without  opposition.* 

Mr.  Corwin's  course  as  a  legislator  seems  to  have  been  entirely 
satisfactory  to  his  constituents  and  he  could  without  doubt  have 
continued  in  the  office  had  he  desired  to  do  so.  After  two  elections 
he  declined  further  service.  The  erroneous  statement  in  the  article 
on  Corwin  in  the  American  Cyclopedia  that  he  was  first  elected  to 
the  legislature  in  1822  and  served  seven  years  has  been  taken  as 
accurate  by  several  writers.  He  was  a  member  of  the  general 
assembly  three  times  only,  viz:  in  1821,  1822  and  1829,  and  each 
time  he  was  one  of  two  members  from  his  county  in  the  lower 
house.  The  files  of  the  Lebanon  newspaper  show  that  he  declined  a 
re-election  in  1823  and  that  at  no  time  was  he  a  candidate  for  the 
legislature  and  defeated. 

*  The  vote  for  two  representatives  from  Warren  county  in  the  general  assembly 
was,  in  1821  :  John  Bigger,  1042;  Thomas  Corwin,  971;  Francis  Dunlevy,  701;  George 
Kesling,  437;  James  W.  Lanier,  219;  Warner  M.  Leeds,  155.  In  1822:  Thomas  Cor 
win,  1162;  John  Bigger,  1147.  (23) 


24  LIFE    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

At  the  time  of  his  first  two  elections  there  were  no  questions  of 
party  politics  entering  into  the  canvasses.  Throughout  his  youth  the 
great  mass  of  the  voters  and  nearly  all  the  leading  men  of  his 
county  were  of  the  Jeffersonian  school  and  in  that  school  he  had 
been  reared.  His  father  was  a  presidential  elector  on  the  Madison 
ticket  in  1812.  The  name  Federalist  had  become  a  term  of  reproach. 
A^candidate  was  never  announced  as  a  member  of  a  political  party 
Qr_a  supporter  of  this  or  that  man  for  president.  His-success.  at.the 
polls  depended  more  on  his  personal  popularity  and  supposed  fitness 
for  the  office  than  on  his. views. on  national  questions.  This  was  true 
even  in  elections  for  congress,  and  a  biographer  of  Justice  John 
McLean  makes  the  astonishing  statement  that  when  a  lawyer  of 
Lebanon  and  a  candidate  for  re-election  to  congress  in  1814, 
McLean  received  not  only  every  vote  cast  for  congressman  in  his 
district,  which  included  Cincinnati,  but  the  vote  of  every  voter  who 
went  to  the  polls. 

At  the  first  two  presidential  elections  after  Mr.  Corwin  became  a 
voter,  although  an  electoral  ticket  was  puit  forward  in  Ohio  in  oppo 
sition  to  the  nominees  of  the  Republican  congressional  caucus,  it 
was  without  hope  of  election,  and,  the  result  being  foreknown,  but  a 
small  proportion  of  the  voters  of  the  state  went  to  the  polls  in  the 
November  elections  of  1&16  and  1820.  In  the  campaign  of  1824 
when  the  congressional  caucus  system  received  its  death  blow  and 
there  were  four  candidates  for  president,  all  claiming  to  be  Jef 
fersonian  Democrats,  and  three  of  them  with  electoral  tickets  in 
Ohio,  the  leading  men  of  Warren  county  who  had  been  united  in  the 
elections  of  Jefferson,  Madison  and  Monroe,  were  for  the  first  time 
divided  in  their  choice  for  president.  The  name  of  Judge  Francis 
Dunlevy  was  placed  on  the  electoral  ticket  for  John  Quincy  Adams ; 
that  of  John  Bigger,  an  ex-speaker  of  the  Ohio  house  of  represen 
tatives,  on  the  ticket  for  Henry  Clay ;  Thomas  R.  Ross,  then  a  mem 
ber  of  congress,  when  the  election  went  to  the  House,  voted  for 
Crawford,  while  Jackson  received  a  plurality  of  the  popular  vote  of 
the  county.  The  friends  of  all  the  candidates  for  president  united  in 
the  support  of  Jeremiah  Morrow  for  governor,  who  was  this  year  a 
candidate  for  re-election,  and  received  nearly  all  of  the  votes  of  the 
county.  The  total  vote  in  the  county  for  president  was  small,  being 
a  thousand  less  than  had  been  cast  in  October  at  the  state  election, 
and  stood:  Jackson,  750;  Adams,  502;  Clay,  311.  There  was  no 


BEGINNINGS    IN    POLITICS.  25 

electoral  ticket  in  Ohio  for  Crawford.      At  this  election  young  Cor- 
win  supported  Clay,  who  carried  the  state  of  Ohio. 

Before  the  next  presidential  election  the  people  of  the  county 
began  to  be  divided  into  two  parties.  The  administration  of  John 
Quincy  Adams  from  the  first  day  of  its  existence  met  with  an  oppo 
sition  more  determined  and  virulent  than  had  ever  before  assailed  a 
president.  The  charge  of  "bargain  and  corruption"  between  the 
president  and  his  secretary  of  state,  Henry  Clay,  though  shown  to 
be  false,  was  an  effective  weapon  against  the  administration,  and  the 
cry  "hurrah  for  Jackson"  rang  throughout  the  Miami  valley.  Mr. 
Corwin's  position  was  that  of  a  firm  but  temperate  and  dignified  sup 
porter  of  the  administration.  He  was  a  leading  spirit  in  the  first 
mass  convention  in  his  county  of  the  friends  of  the  administration, 
held  in  the  court  house  at  Lebanon  November  17th,  1827.  Ex-Gov 
ernor  Morrow  presided,  and  on  taking  the  chair  addressed  the  meet 
ing  at  length ;  Judge  Joshua  Collett  and  John  Bigger  were  the  secre 
taries,  and  Thomas  Corwin  chairman  of  the  committee  on  resolu 
tions,  which  reported  an  elaborate  address  favoring  the  re-election 
of,  Mr.  Adams.  At  the  Ohio  state  Adams  convention,  held  at 
Columbus  December  28th,  1827,  the  chairman  was  ex-Governor 
Morrow ;  the  secretaries,  Thomas  Corwin,  of  Warren,  and  William 
Daugherty,  of  Franklin. 

In  1828  caucus  nominations  for  members  of  the  legislature 
were  made  for  the  first  time  in  Warren  county  and  a  Jackson  ticket 
put  in  the  field.  The  convention  system  of  nomination  was  de 
nounced  by  the  anti-Jackson  party  as  an  undemocratic  contrivance 
which  abridged  the  liberties  of  the  people.  At  the  elections  this 
year  the  voters  of  the  county  were  nearly  evenly  divided  between 
the  parties.  In  October  the  Jackson  candidate  for  governor  received 
a  majority  of  62  votes  and  the  Jackson  candidates  for  the  legislature 
were  'elected  by  small  majorities,  but  at  the  presidential  election  in 
November,  Adams  received  a  majority  of  37  over  Jackson. 

The  result  of  the  next  election  was  in  much  doubt  and  in  1829 
both  parties  induced  their  strongest  men  to  become  candidates  for 
the  legislature.  Thomas  R.  Ross,  ex-member  of  congress,  and 
General  Benjamin  Baldwin  were  nominated  by  a  caucus  of  the 
Jackson  party.  Jeremiah  Morrow  and  Thomas  Corwin,  both  against 
their  personal  inclination,  consented  to  the  use  of  their  names  in  the 
doubtful  contest.  They  were  not  the  nominees  of  any  caucus  but 


26  LIFE    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

were  known  to  be  opponents  of  the  Jackson  administration.     They 
were  elected  by  decided  majorities.  * 

Thus  Mr.  Corwin  after  an  interval  of  six  years  became  again  a 
representative  in  the  legislature.  The  house  to  which  he  was  elected 
consisted  of  thirty-seven  Jackson  and  thirty-five  anti-Jackson  men. 
Thomas  L.  Hamer,  the  talented  young  Democratic  lawyer  of  Brown 
county,  was  elected  speaker,  and  his  course  as  a  presiding  officer 
was  characterized  by  fairness  and  impartiality  rather  than  a  narrow 
partisan  spirit.  In  appointing  the  fifteen  standing  committees  he 
appointed  a  majority  of  Jackson  men  on  eight,  and  a  majority  of 
anti-Jackson  men  on  seven.  He  appointed  Mr.  Corwin  chairman  of 
the  judiciary  committee  and  Mr.  Morrow  chairman  of  the  finance 
committee.  None  of  Mr.  Corwin's  speeches  at  this  session  have 
been  preserved,  the  newspapers  giving  only  meager  reports  of  his 
remarks  on  the  matters  upon  which  he  was  called  to  give  his  reasons 
for  his  vote.  In  a  debate  participated  in  by  several  members  on  a 
bill  authorizing  a  survey  for  the  extension  of  the  Miami  canal  from 
Dayton  to  Ft.  Defiance,  he  made  a  speech  which  was  highly  com 
mended  by  those  who  heard  the  discussion  as  an  eloquent  and  mas 
terly  argument  in  favor  of  the  measure,  which  became  a  law. 

In  1830  Mr.  Corwin  was  urged  to  become  a  candidate  for  con 
gress.  His  district  was  composed  of  the  counties  of  Butler  and 
Warren,  and  a  large  majority  of  its  voters  were  favorable  to  Jack 
son.  In  Butler  county  the  Jackson  men  had  outnumbered  their 
opponents  more  than  two  to  one  in  the  state  and  presidential  elec 
tions  of  1828.  Before  the  division  of  the  people  into  political  par 
ties,  when  there  was  a  better  prospect  of  election,  Mr.  Corwin  had 
been  earnestly  solicited  by  his  friends  and  admirers  to  run  for  con 
gress,  but  he  had  from  term  to  term  declined  in  favor  of  some  other 
candidate  for  whose  political  aspirations  he  entertained  a  tender 
regard.  His  wife's  brother,  Thomas  R.  Ross,  had  been  elected  to 
congress  three  times.  In  1824  Mr.  Ross  was  defeated  in  this  district 
by  John  Woods,  of  Hamilton,  who  served  two  terms.  In  1828  Mr. 
Woods,  who  opposed  the  election  of  Jackson  to  the  presidency,  was 
defeated  by  James  Shields,  of  Butler  county,  the  Jackson  candidate, 
who  received  a  large  majority  of  the  votes  of  the  two  counties. 
Mr.  Shields  was  a  candidate  for  re-election,  having  been  nominated 

*Vote  in  Warren  county  for  two  representatives  in  the  legislature,  October,  1829: 
Jeremiah  Morrow,  (anti-Jackson)  -  -  1079.  Thomas  R.  Ross,  (Jackson)  -  -  -  -  846. 
Thomas  Corwin,  (anti-Jackson)-  -  -  1058.  Benjamin  Baldwin,  (Jackson)-  -  -815. 


BEGINNINGS    IN    POLITICS.  27 

in  the  summer  of  1830  by  a  Jackson  convention  held  at  Monroe. 

Mr.  Corwin  finally  consented  to  the  announcement  of  his  can 
didacy,  perhaps  with  little  hopes  of  his  election,  and  was  doubtless 
as  much  surprised  as  his  friends  were  gratified  by  the  handsome 
majority  he  received.  The  district  remained  Democratic  and  a  ma 
jority  of  the  voters  at  the  same  election  voted  for  the  Jackson  candi 
date  for  governor.* 

The  canvass,  so  far  as  can  now  be  learned,  was  conducted  with 
out  public  speaking  on  either  side.  The  only  speech  known  to  have 
been  delivered  by  Mr.  Corwin  in  the  district  in  the  canvass  was  a 
literary  address  at  the  commencement  of  Miami  University  a  few 
weeks  before  the  election,  and  the  invitation  for  this  address  was 
accepted  before  he  became  a  candidate.  The  result  of  the  election 
was  largely  due  to  the  personal  popularity  of  the  successful  candi 
date  and  no  doubt  in  part  to  other  causes  which  cannot  now  be 
well  ascertained. 

In  the  latter  years  of  his  life  Mr.  Corwin  sometimes  amused  his 
friends  by  telling  them  of  what  he  called  "  the  night-shirt  issue,"  on 
which  he  was  first  elected  to  congress.  The  story  as  he  told  it  was 
that  at  the  beginning  of  the  campaign  he  had  little  or  no  hope  of 
election,  but  he  learned  that  the  serious  charge  was  made  against 
his  opponent  of  habitually  sleeping  in  a  night-shirt ;  then  he  began 
to  have  hopes  of  election,  feeling  confident  that  the  Jacksonian  democ 
racy  would  not  unife  in  support  of  a  man  who  was  too  good  to 
sleep  in  the  shirt  he  wore  in  the  day  time.  No  allusion  to  such  a 
charge  in  this  canvass  is  to  be  found  in  the  files  of  the  Lebanon 
newspaper  which  supported  Mr.  Corwin,  but  the  story  was  doubtless 
not  entirely  without  foundation.  In  the  campaign  of  1828,  when 
Mr.  Convin's  opponent  was  first  nominated  for  congress,  there  were 
published  certificates  that  prominent  men  of  the  Jackson  party  had 
declared  that  Mr.  Shields  was  not  fit  for  congress,  and  that  when  a 

*Vote  cast  in  the  second  Ohio  congressional  district,  October,  1830: 

For  Congressman —                                                          BUTLER.        WARREN.  TOTAL. 

Thomas  Corwin,  (anti-Jackson)     ....   1051                  1741  2792 

James  Shields,  (Jackson) 1243                   816  2059 

Corwin's  majority, 733 

For  Governor — 

Robert  Lucas,  (Jackson) 1490                 1128  2618 

Duncan  McArthur,  (anti-Jackson)    -     -     -       815                  1422  2237 

Lucas's  majority, 381 


28  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

member  of  the  legislature  he  was  only  fit  to  correct  the  bad  gram 
mar  of  a  bill  and  to  stand  before  a  looking-glass  and  powder  himself; 
that  he  always  made  his  appearance  in  the  House  with  his  hair 
powdered  and  his  cambric  shirt  on,  but  at  night  he  exchanged  his 
cambric  shirt  for  another,  and  that  he  himself  had  said  that  it  was 
his  usual  custom  to  powder  himself  in  the  morning,  and  that  when 
at  home  he  powdered  his  hair  before  going  out  to  plow.  Doubtless 
in  1830  something  was  heard  about  the  candidate  who  kept  a  night 
shirt  and  powdered  his  hair,  but  these  were  hardly  the  great  issues 
on  which  Corwin  was  first  sent  to  congress. 

The  politics  of  the  two  counties  of  Butler  and  Warren  which 
formed  the  district  from  which  Thomas  Corwin  was  first  sent  to 
congress  presents  a  curious  subject  for  the  student  of  sociology. 
These  two  counties  were  formed  by  the  'same  act  of  the  legislature ; 
they  were  settled  about  the  same  time  by  the  'same  class  of  hardy 
pioneers ;  they  lie  side  by  side  and  have  the  same  fertile  soil ;  for 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  their  inhabitants  were  alike  in 
politics  and  gave  similar  majorities  for  the  same  state  and  national 
tickets,  but  about  1830  they  separated  politically,  and  from  that  time 
have  never  given  majorities  for  the  same  national  ticket.  This  fact 
does  not  admit  of  an  easy  explanation.  The  war  of  1812  in  some 
parts  of  the  country  produced  a  reorganization  of  parties,  but  in 
these  counties  it  did  not  change  their  names  or  principles ;  both  were 
equally  enthusiastic  in  the  support  of  that  war.  Jackson  had  his 
strongest  following  in  the  farming  districts,  but  both  these  counties 
were  agricultural.  Certain  it  is  that  in  the  days  of  General  Jackson, 
Butler  became  decidedly  Democratic  and  Warren  decidedly  anti- 
Democratic,  and  they  have  so  continued  ever  since. 


IN  CONGRESS. 


Corwin  took  his  seat  as  a  member  of  the  house  of  representa 
tives  at  the  first  session  of  the  twenty-second  congress,  which  was 
commenced  on  December  5th,  1831,  and  was  terminated  on  July 
-47th,  1832,  a  session,  in  the  opinion  of  Benton,  the  most  memorable 
in  the  annals  of  our  government,  because  it  was  the  one  at  which  the 
great  contest  for  the  renewal  of  the  charter  of  the  bank  of  the 
United  States  was  brought  on  and  decided.  In  the  list  of  members 
of  both  houses  of  this  congress  are  found  the  names  of  many  men 
of  brilliant  talents,  some  already  illustrious  and  others  who  after 
wards  became  so.  In  the  senate  were  Webster,  Clay,  Benton, 
Ewing,  Clayton,  Tyler  and,  presiding  as  vice-president,  Calhoun ;  in 
the  house,  John  Quincy  Adams,  Edward  Everett,  Rufus  Choate, 
Richard  M.  Johnson,  John  Bell  and  James  K.  Polk.  Both  branches 
of  congress  as  well  as  the  executive  department  were  controlled  by 
the  Democrats. 

At  this  time  Mr.  Corwin  was  thirty-seven  years  old  ;  he  had  been 
elected  under  circumstances  that  must  have  been  gratifying;  he  had 
already  won  distinction  for  oratory  at  the  bar,  in  the  legislature  and 
by  occasional  addresses ;  he  could  hardly  have  been  unconscious  of 
his  ability  to  hold  the  attention  and  to  sway  the  minds  of  a  legisla 
tive  body,  yet  he  permitted  both  sessions  of  the  term  to  which  he 
had  been  elected  to  pass  without  once  taking  the  floor.  The  first 
session  of  the  second  congress  to  which  he  was  elected  had  nearly 
ended  when  on  April  4th,  1834,  he  rose  to  make  his  first  speech  in 
the  house,  in  the  introduction  to  which  he  referred  to  "  the  silence  I 
have  rigidly  maintained  for  nearly  three  sessions  of  congress."  On 
this  occasion  he  made  an  elaborate  argument  on  the  public  deposits, 
a  subject  which  had  for  three  months  engrossed  the  attention  of 
congress,  and  spoke  for  an  hour  on  three  different  days.  His 
reported  speeches  number  but  six  in  the  nine  years  of  his  continu 
ous  service  as  a  member  of  the  house.  In  his  last  speech  in  con- 

(29) 


30  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

gress  before  resigning  to  become  a  candidate  for  governor,  he  could 
say  with  a  good  grace:  "This  house,  Mr.  Speaker,  knows  that  I  am 
not  given  to  much  babbling  here ;  yes,  sir,  you  all  know  that  like 
Balaam's  ass,  I  never  speak  here  until  I  am  kicked  into  it.  I  may 
claim  credit,  therefore  for  sincerity,  when  I  declare  that  a  strong 
sense  of  justice  alone  could  have  called  me  into  this  debate." 

From  his  first  entrance  in  congress  Mr.  Corwin  was,  by  his 
votes,  a  supporter  of  the  measures  of  the  new  political  party,  .which 
about  this  time  took  the  name  of  National  Republican,  and  not  long 

,  Whig.  He  voted  for  the  recharter  of  the  bank  of  the  United 
States  at  his  first  session,  and  throughout  his  terms  of  service  favored 
the  protective  system  in  levying  duties  and  internal  improvements 
by  the  federal  government.  Mr.  Corwin  was  elected  a  representative 
for  five  successive  terms,  and  in  all  that  time  there  was  a  Democratic 
president  in  the  White  House  and  a  Democratic  speaker  sat  in  the 
chair  of  the  house  of  representatives  at  every  term  except  the  last. 
He  would  have  been  unable  to  increase  his  popularity  at  home 
by  securing  federal  appointments  for  his  constituents  had  he  desired 
to  do  so. 

After  his  first  election  he  was  placed  in  a  new  congressional  dis 
trict  which  gave  decided  majorities  against  Jackson  and  VanBuren, 
and  thenceforward  he  could  become  a  candidate  without  much 
doubt  of  his  election.  His  name  was  uniformly  placed  before  the 
people  as  a  candidate  by  the  common  consent  of  his  party  friends 
and  without  the  formality  of  a  district  convention.  In  important 
political  campaigns  he  made  speeches  in  his  district  and  at  other 
places  in  the  state,  and  sometimes  held  joint  discussions  with  his 
competitor  for  congress  or  some  other  Democratic  speaker ;  but  large 
political  meetings  were  not  common  in  Ohio  at  this  period.  His  dis 
trict  was  composed  of  the  counties  of  Warren,  Clinton  and  High 
land,  and  his  opposing  candidates  in  this  district  were,  in  1832, 
Nathaniel  McLean,  of  Warren;  in  1834,  Joseph  J.  McDowell,  of 
Highland,  and  in  1836,  Samuel  H.  Hale,  of  Clinton.  In  1838  he 
was  elected  without  opposition. 

Rarely  as  Mr.  Corwin  appeared  in  debate  he  became  known  as 
one  of  the  best  speakers  in  the  house.  One  of  his  contemporaries 
wrote  in  the  American  Review:  "The  announcement  of  his  name 
was  an  assurance  of  profound  stillness  in  the  house.  That  still 
ness  continued  while  he  occupied  the  floor,  except  as  it  was  some 
times  broken  by  demonstrations  of  excitement,  such  as  wit,  argument 


IN    CONGRESS.  31 

and  eloquence  like  his  must  occasionally  produce.  "  Some  of  his 
best  speeches  were  delivered  with  little  time  for  preparation.  He 
concluded  his  elaborate  and  able  speech  on  the  surplus  revenue  in 
1837  with  an  apology  for  detaining  the  house  too  long,  which  he 
found  in  the  fact  that  he  had  not  "the  most  distant  thought  of 
addressing  the  house  until  the  afternoon  of  the  preceding  day  and 
without  further  time  for  arrangement  of  topics,  he  could  not  hope  to 
preserve  that  order  which  is  favorable  to  brevity  as  well  as  perspic 
uity.  "  His  great  speech  in  favor  of  the  continuation  of  the  Cum 
berland  road  through  the  western  states  is  a  fine  illustration  of  the 
truth  that  solid  arguments  can  be  enlivened  with  wit  and  humor  with 
out  losing  their  effectiveness. 

The  most  famous  of  his  speeches  of  this  period  is  his  reply  to 
General  Crary,  on  February  15th,  1840.  Isaac  E.  Crary  was  a 
member  from  Michigan,  who  had  taken  the  occasion  of  a  discussion 
on  the  Cumberland  road  to  attack  the  military  record  of  General 
Harrison,  who  had  already  been  nominated  as  the  Whig  candidate 
for  president.  The  defense  of  the  hero  of  Tippecanoe,  who  lived 
in  Ohio,  fell  upon  Mr.  Corwin,  and  the  next  day  he  took  the  floor 
and  delivered  the  speech  which  was  read  throughout  the  nation  and 
has  never  been  forgotten.  It  had  already  been  determined  that  Cor 
win  should  be  the  Whig  candidate  for  governor  of  Ohio.  The  occa 
sion  was  one  that  seldom  comes  in  the  life  of  a  politician.  Never 
before  were  sarcasm  and  satire  so  effectively  employed  in  the  debates 
of  congress,  and  they  were  all  the  more  effective  because  the  speech 
abounded  in  good  humor  and  was  without  bitterness  or  any  unkind 
or  unfriendly  allusions  to  the  gentleman  to  whom  he  replied.  As 
suming  that  the  member  from  Michigan,  who  was  a  militia  general, 
had  derived  his  knowledge  of  the  art  of  war  from  services  as  a 
militia  officer  in  time  of  peace,  he  described  the  ridiculous  features 
of  the  old  system  of  militia  training  which  had  already  fallen  into 
general  contempt.  The  speaker  had  himself  often  been  a  witness 
of  the  scenes  of  intoxication  and  fighting  at  the  general  muster  of 
the  militia,  and  there  is  a  tradition  that  he  had  employed  the  same 
weapons  of  satire  and  had  used  the  same  images  and  given  much  the 
same  description,  in  the  court  of  a  justice  of  the  peace  near  his 
home,  while  defending  a  militiaman  charged  with  an  assault  and  bat- 
tery  committed  upon  an  officer  on  muster  day.  It  was  then  his  pur 
pose  to  overwhelm  with  ridicule  the  pompous  militia  officer  who  was 
the  prosecuting  witness. 


32  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

The  reply  to  General  Crary  gave  Thomas  Corwin  a  national 
reputation  as  a  wit.  Compliments  were  showered  on  the  orator 
from  his  associates  in  congress  and  newspaper  writers  at  the  capital. 
John  Bell,  of  Tennessee,  speaking  in  the  same  debate  said  he  had  not 
in  the  twelve  years  of  his  service  in  the  house,  heard  a  more  elo 
quent  or  effective  speech.  John  Quincy  Adams  referred  to  the  van 
quished  militia  general  as  "the  late  Mr.  Crary  of  Michigan."  A 
writer  for  a  New  York  newspaper  said  that  it  was  the  general  opin 
ion  that  this  was  the  most  effective  speech  delivered  for  many  years 
in  congress;  Mr.  Corwin,  he  wrote,  "possesses  all  the  qualifications 
of  mind  and  manner  to  make  him  a  perfect  orator.  He  puts  his 
antagonist  to  death  in  a  manner  so  courteous  and  refined,  with  so 
much  good  nature  and  for  so  many  good  reasons  that,  like  Hastings 
before  Burke,  the  opponent,  guilty  or  not  guilty,  feels  that  he 
deserves  his  condemnation."  The  following  abridgment  of  an  article 
written  at  Washington  after  the  delivery  of  this  speech,  and  pub 
lished  in  the  New  York  Morning  Herald,  gives  an  estimate  of  Mr. 
Corwin's  rank  as  an  orator  and  debater  at  this  time : 

"  Mr.  Corwin,  of  Ohio,  followed  in  defense  of  General  Harrison  and 
made  one  of  those  speeches  which  he  alone  is  capable  of  making^  Mr. 
Corwin,  permit  me  to  say,  is  the  ablest,  most  eloquent  and  successful  speaker 
in  the  American  congress;  his  manner  and  his  matter  are  purely  original; 
they  hold  no  alliance  or  affinity  with  the  eloquence  of  Webster  or  Clay  and 
Mr.  Corwin  in  his  career  as  a  statesman  or  as  an  aspirant  for  parliamentary 
fame,  does  not  come  in  collision  with  either  of  these  eminent  men.  He  is 
I  remarkably  well  read  in  the  light  and  polite  literature  of  the  age;  he  is  an 
I  elegant  scholar  without  being  pedantic ;  a  happy  and  good  natured  strain  of 
;  irony  and  satire  plays  throughout  all  his  parliamentary  efforts ;  and  he  proba- 
'bly  more  resembles  Sheridan  than  any  man  that  has  flourished  since  the 
palmy  and  bright  days  of  the  British  house  of  commons.  Mr.  Corwin  makes 
i^p  the  larger  part  of  his  speeches  with  Attic  salt  and  refined  humor,  but 
when  he  suffers  himself  to  soar  to  the  higher  regions  of  pathos  he  is 
pathetic  beyond  conception ;  and  nothing  can  excel  the  majesty  and  beauty 
of  his  bursts  of  passion  or  the  severity  of  his  chaste  .and  withering  invective. 
He  made  his  appearance  in  congress  about  ten  years  ago  but  never  spoke  till 
the  year  1834  to  my  knowledge;  since  that  period  he  has  spoken  on  four 
occasions,  and  though  he  spoke  on  each  occasion  impromptu,  he  won  by  his 
efforts  a  reputation  that  might  well  be  envied.  He  is  excessively  modest  and 
notwithstanding  he  has  been  many  years  in  congress  he  experiences  great 
embarrassment  on  first  taking  the  floor  and  it  is  only  after  the  most  pressing 
persuasion  that  his  friends  can  get  him  to  speak  at  all." 


THE   CAMPAIGN   OF   1840. 


Corwin  was  nominated  as  the  Whig  candidate  for  governor  of 
Ohio  at  a  state  convention  held  in  Columbus  on  the  21st  and  22nd 
days  of  February,  1840.  Harrison  had  been  nominated  for  presi 
dent  at  a  convention  held  at  Harrisburg,  December  4th,  1839.  The 
Whigs  of  Ohio  had  but  recently  become  reconciled  to  the  convention 
method  of  nominating  candidates  for  state  and  county  offices,  but 
their  electoral  tickets  in  preceding  presidential  campaigns  had  been 
selected  at  state  conventions.  The  Ohio  Whig  convention  of  1840 
was  called  to  nominate  an  electoral  ticket  and  a  candidate  for  gov 
ernor,  the  chief  executive  being  the  only  state  officer  elected  by  the 
people  under  the  first  constitution  of  Ohio.  It  was  a  large  mass- 
convention  of  voters  from  all  parts  of  the  state,  and,  although  it  was 
winter  time,  its  sessions  were  held  in  the  open  air.  The  whole  of  the 
second  day's  proceedings,  as  well  as  the  marching  of  the  procession, 
were  in  continuous  torrents  of  rain. 

The  selection  of  a  candidate  for  governor  to  be  reported  to  the 
convention  was  referred  to  a  large  committee  consisting  of  ten 
persons  from  each  of  the  nineteen  congressional  districts.  On  the 
first  ballot  of  the  committee  Thomas  Corwin  received  120  out  of  the 
190  votes.  His  name  was  then  unanimously  agreed  upon  by  the 
committee  and  he  was  unanimously  nominated  by  the  convention. 
He  accepted  the  nomination  in  a  letter  from  Washington  dated 
March  18th,  and  tendered  his  resignation  of  the  office  of  representa 
tive  in  congress  to  take  effect  in  May  following.  On  the  4th  day  of 
May"Mr.  Corwin  attended  a  great  Whig  meeting  at  Baltimore,  at 
which  some  of  the  most  eminent  Whig  members  of  congress  were 
present,  among  whom  were  Clay,  Webster,  Preston,  Crittenden  and 
Fillmore. 

The  campaign  of  1840  was  the  most  remarkable  in  the  history 
of  our  country,  and  nowhere  was  it  more  remarkable  than  in  the  state 

in  which  Harrison  and  Corwin  lived.     The  rising  of  the  people  in 
4  (33) 


34  LIFE    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

behalf  of  the  Whig  candidates  seemed  to  be  spontaneous,  and  the 
whole  state  teemed  with  monster  mass-meetings  and  processions  and 
resounded  with  the  noise  of  drums  and  fifes.  Gray-haired  soldiers 
of  the  revolution  marched  in  the  processions.  Farmers  with  their 
wives,  sons  and  daughters  in  jolting  wagons  left  their  homes  at  mid 
night  to  hear  Tom  Corwin  the  next  day.  The  larger  meetings  were 
measured  in  acres.  The  largest  meeting  of  the  campaign  in  the 
United  States  was  at  Dayton,  Ohio,  at  which  General  Harrison  spoke, 
and  it  was  reported  that  the  multitude  covered  ten  acres. 

It  has  been  said  there  was  more  enthusiasm  and  less  thought  in 
this  campaign  than  in  any  other.  Many  novel  features  made  it 
highly  picturesque  on  the  part  of  the  Whigs,  but  some  of  them  were 
of  a  character  to  make  the  judicious  grieve.  The  log-cabin,  hard- 
cider  and  coon-skin  were  used  as  symbols  by  the  Whigs  to  show 
their  sympathy  with  the  poorest  and  humblest  classes.  General 
Harrison  was  said  to  live  in  a  log-cabin,  but  his  residence  at  North 
Bend  was  rather  a  stately  mansion,  and  though  a  part  had  been 
constructed  of  logs,  it  was  all  covered  with  boards  and  painted 
white.  Log-cabins  were  placed  on  wheels  and  drawn  to  the  meet 
ings,  and  others  were  raised  in  the  public  places  of  large  cities  and 
the  people  were  invited  to  drink  hard-cider  in  them  out  of  gourds. 
From  the  last  two  syllables  of  Tippecanoe  the  canoe  became  a  famil 
iar  object  in  the  processions,  and  immense  frames  fashioned  after  the 
canoe  were  placed  on  wagons  and  drawn  by  six  or  more  horses  a 
distance  of  many  miles  to  political  meetings. 

The  novel  features  of  the  campaign  were  devised  soon  after  the 
nomination  of  Harrison,  and  were  seen  at  large  political  gatherings 
even  in  the  winter  before  the  presidential  election.  At  the  conven 
tion  which  nominated  Corwin  log-cabins  and  canoes  were  conspicu 
ous  in  the  procession.  One  of  the  canoes,  drawn  by  eight  horses, 
was  seventy  feet  long,  held  fifty-six  persons,  and  had  been  made  out 
of  the  trunk  of  an  immense  sycamore  tree.  In  the  same  proces 
sion  were  large  log-cabins,  well  built,  roofed  with  clap-boards,  hav 
ing  doors,  windows  and  chimneys,  some  of  them  with  fires  burning 
and  smoke  issuing  from  the  chimneys.  It  was  said  that  some  of 
these  cabins  had  been  brought  on  wheels  a  distance  of  from  fifty  to 
one  hundred  miles.  Cuyahoga  county  sent  to  the  convention  a  full 
rigged  brig  from  the  lake,  a  distance  of  one  hundred  and  forty  miles. 
It  had  been  delayed  on  its  long  journey  by  rain-storms ;  it  had  been 
wrecked ;  the  wheels  on  which  it  was  placed  sank  up  to  their  hubs  in 


CAMPAIGN    OF    EIGHTEEN    HUNDRED    AND    FORTY.  3o 

mud,  but  it  arrived  in  the  afternoon  of  the  second  day,  and  was 
drawn  in  the  procession  by  six  white  horses.  A  less  common  fea~ 
ture  was  an  immense  ball,  perhaps  ten  feet  in  diameter,  on  which 
were  inscribed  catch  phrases  of  the  campaign  and  the  names  of  the 
states  which  had  already  given  Whig  majorities.  It  was  propelled 
by  men  at  the  ends  of  a  pole  which  served  as  an  axle.  Such  a  ball 
was  seen  on  Broadway  in  Cincinnati  and  was  said  to  have  been  rolled 
from  the  eastern  cities.  As  it  was  rolled  a  song  was  sung  or 
chanted. 

With  heart  and  soul, 
This  ball  we  roll. 

As  rolls  this  ball,  Farewell  dear  Van, 

Van's  reign  does  fall  You're  not  our  man ; 

And  he  may  look  To  guard  the  ship 

To  Kinderhook.  We'll  try  old  Tip. 

Some  one  has  said  that  Harrison  was  sung  into  the  presidency. 
Songs  were  written  without  number  and  sung  at  the  Whig  meetings. 
The  two  songs  of  the  campaign  which  became  most  famous  through 
out  the  land  originated  in  Ohio.  The  first  of  these  was  the  "Buckeye 
Cabin  Song,"  written  by  Otway  Curry,  of  Marysville,  Ohio,  and  first 
sung  at  the  convention  which  nominated  Corwin  by  a  band  of  sing 
ers  in  a  cabin  made  of  buckeye  logs,  taken  to  the  convention 
from  Union  county.  The  other  was  "Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  Too," 
written  by  A.  C.  Ross,  of  Zanesville.  Benton  complained  that 
even  steamboats  and  public  places  were  crowded  with  parties  singing 
Whig  doggerel  ballads.  Some  verses  are  given  as  specimens. 

Oh,  where,  tell  me  where,  was  your  buckeye  cabin  made? 

Oh,  where,  tell  me  where,  was  your  buckeye  cabin  made  ? 
'Twas  built  among  the  merry  boys  who  wield  the  plow  and  spade, 

Where  the  log-cabins  stand  in  the  bonnie  buckeye  shade. 
Chorus:     'Twas  built,  etc. 

Oh,  why,  tell  me  why,  does  your  buckeye  cabin  go? 

Oh,  why,  tell  me  why,  does  your  buckeye  cabin  go  ? 
It  goes  against  the  spoilsman — for  well  the  builders  know 

It  was  Harrison  that  fought  for  the  cabins  long  ago. 
Chorus:     It  goes  against  the,  etc. 

Old  Tip,  he  wears  a  homespun  suit, 
He  has  no  ruffled  shirt — wirt — wirt, 
But  Mat  he  has  the  golden  plate 
And  he's  a  little  squirt — wirt — wirt. 


36  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

What  has  caused  this  great  commotion — motion — motion 

Our  country  through  ? 

It  is  the  ball  a  rolling  on 

For  Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too,  Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too. 
And  with  them  we'll  beat  little  Van ; 

Van,  Van  is  a  used  up  man. 

Then  let  us  cheer  that  wagon  boy, 
Who  drove  that  noble  team  wo-hoy ! 

Among  the  songs  sung  in  Ohio  was  one  composed  by  John 
W.  VanCleve,  of  Dayton,  and  published  in  a  campaign  paper  called 
the  Log-Cabin  printed  in  that  city,  two  stanzas  of  which  are  given : 

Success  to  you,  Tom  Corwin, 

Tom  Corwin,  our  true  hearts  love  you ; 
Ohio  has  no  nobler  son, 

In  worth  there's  none  above  you, 
And  she  will  soon  bestow 

On  you  her  highest  honor, 
And  then  our  state  will  proudly  show 

Without  a  stain  upon  her. 

Success  to  you,  Tom  Corwin, 

We've  seen  with  warm  emotion 
Your  faithfulness  to  freedom's  cause, 

Your  boldness,  your  devotion ; 
And  we  will  ne'er  forget 

That  you  our  rights  have  guarded; 
Our  grateful  hearts  shall  pay  the  debt, 

And  worth  shall  be  rewarded. 

For  the  methods  resorted  to  in  this  campaign,  so  little  compli 
mentary  to  popular  intelligence,  the  successful  candidates  should  no 
more  be  held  responsible  than  should  Lincoln  for  the  carrying  of 
fence  rails  in  the  political  processions  of  1860.  Harrison  and 
Corwin  would  doubtless  have  preferred  to  be  elected  by  arguments 
addressed  to  the  reason  and  judgment  of  the  voters  rather  than  by 
appeals  to  their  passions  and  prejudices.  The  campaign  methods  did 
not  please  all  in  the  Whig  ranks.  As  early  as  April,  1840,  a  young 
cadet  at  West  Point,  the  adopted  son  of  the  distinguished  Whig 
statesman,  Thomas  Ewing,  wrote:  "You  are  no  doubt  certain  that 
General  Harrison  will  be  our  next  president.  I  do  not  think  there 
is  the  least  hope  of  such  a  change,  since  his  friends  have  thought 
proper  to  envelop  his  name  with  log  cabins,  gingerbread,  hard  cider 
and  such  humbugging,  the  sole  object  of  which  is  plainly  to  deceive 
and  mislead  his  ignorant  and  prejudiced  but  honest  fellow  citizens, 


CAMPAIGN    OF    EIGHTEEN    HUNDRED    AND    FORTY.  37 

whilst  his  qualifications,  his  honesty,  his  merits  and  services  are 
merely  alluded  to."  The  name  of  this  young  cadet  was  William 
Tecumseh  Sherman. 

The  campaign  opened  early.  The  first  of  the  large  mass  meet 
ings  attended  by  Corwin  was  in  his  own  district  on  the  22nd  of  May. 
It  was  a  congressional  district  convention  called  to  nominate  a 
candidate  to  succeed  Mr.  Corwin  in  congress  and  was  held  at  Wil 
mington,  the  most  central  of  the  county  seats  of  the  district. 
Efforts  were  made  to  have  an  immense  assembly  present  and  they 
were  successful.  The  Whig  papers  estimated  the  number  present  at 
10,000.  Large  delegations  came  from  all  the  counties.  The  people 
came  on  foot,  on  horseback,  in  wagons,  and  carried  banners,  flags 
and  coon  'skins.  From  some  of  the  wagons  were  dispensed  corn 
dodgers  and  hard  cider.  Log-cabins  and  immense  canoes  were  a 
prominent  feature  of  the  procession. 

Nathaniel  McLean,  who  had  been  the  Jackson  candidate  for 
congress  against  Corwin  in  1832,  was  the  president  of  the  meeting. 
The  main  business  of  the  convention  was  transacted  by  the  people 
from  the  three  counties  separating  into  three  meetings  and  each 
meeting  selecting  fifty  delegates  to  nominate  a  candidate  for  congress. 
These  delegates  agreed  upon  the  name  of  Jeremiah  Morrow  as  the 
candidate  for  the  unexpired  term  of  Mr.  Corwin  and  also  for  the  suc 
ceeding  term  of  two  years.  Their  report  was  unanimously  con 
firmed  in  the  mass  convention.  Thomas  Corwin,  the  Whig  candi 
date  for  governor,  was  then  presented  and  made  what  is  believed  to 
have  been  his  first  speech  in  the  campaign,  and  for  the  first  time 
spoke  to  one  of  those  immense  political  meetings  which  he  was  so 
frequently  afterwards  called  upon  to  address.  He  spoke  at  consid 
erable  length  and  succeeded  in  arousing  the  listening  thousands  to  a 
high  enthusiasm. 

In  July  Mr.  Corwin  had  a  joint  discussion  at  Columbus  with 
Thomas  L.  Hamer,  the  ablest  and  most  popular  speaker  of  Ohio  on ' 
the  Democratic  side.  The  next  month  he  entered  upon  an  extensive 
tour  of  the  state,  speaking  on  August  1st  at  a  large  meeting  at 
Waynesville,  in  his  own  county.  This  was  not  only  before  the  time 
of  railroads,  but  when  there  were  but  few  turnpikes  in  Ohio,  and  he1 
traveled,  often  through  mud  and  rain,  and  spoke  in  nearly  every 
county.  It  was  in  this  campaign  that  he  became  widely  known  as 
the  finest  stump  speaker  in  America.  While  General  Harrison,  as 
the  candidate  for  president,  drew  the  largest  crowds,  there  was  every- 


38  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

where  a  desire  to  hear  the  witty  wagon  boy,  and  his  meetings,  even 
in  the  newer  portions  of  the  state,  often  numbered  thousands.  The 
Whigs  were  greatly  encouraged  by  the  results  of  the  elections  in 
other  states,  some  of  which  voted  in  the  spring,  some  in  August  and 
some  in  September.  As  state  after  state  gave  large  majorities  for 
the  Whigs  they  became  more  and  more  confident  of  victory  in  Ohio 
and  in  the  nation,  and  their  singers  believed  the  words  of  their  bal 
lad,  "Van,  Van,  is  a  used  up  man." 

But  the  Democrats  did  not  give  up  the  contest  until  the  votes 
/were  counted.  Mr.  Corwin's  competitor  was  Wilson  Shannon,  a 
lawyer  of  St.  Clairsville,  then  governor  of  the  state,  and  a  strong 
and  popular  man,  who  was  subsequently  minister  to  Mexico  and 
governor  of  the  territory  of  Kansas.  He  made  a  vigorous  canvass 
and  was  assisted  by  such  popular  speakers  as  Senator  William  Allen, 
ex-Congressman  Hamer  and  Vice-President  Richard  M.  Johnson, 
who  was  a  candidate  for  re-election.  When  the  votes  were  counted 
it  was  found  that  Corwin  had  a  majority  of  over  16,000,  nearly 
twice  as  large  as  any  candidate  for  governor  or  president  had 
received  in  the  state  since  the  division  of  the  voters  into  two  politi 
cal  parties.* 

The  total  vote  of  the  state  was  much  larger  than  had  ever  be 
fore  been  cast  at  either  a  state  or  presidential  election.  Mr.  Cor 
win's  congressional  district  gave  him  a  majority  of  over  2,000,  and  the 
Connecticut  Western  Reserve  nearly  10,000,  every  one  of  the  eleven 
counties  in  that  extensive  region,  peopled  by  emigrants  from  New 
England,  casting  a  decided  Whig  majority.  Cincinnati,  a  city  of 
50,000  inhabitants,  gave  a  Whig  majority  of  about  1,300,  but  the 
country  townships  of  Hamilton  county  were  strongly  Democratic  and 
that  county  gave  Corwin  a  majority  of  only  21. 

*Vote  for  governor,  October,  1840: 

Thomas  Corwin  (Whig) 145,442 

Wilson  Shannon  (Democrat) 129,312 


Corwin's  majority, 16,130 


GOVERNOR  AND  EX-GOVERNOR— 1840-1844. 


Corwin  was  inaugurated  governor  and  read  his  inaugural  ad-i 
dress  to  the  two  houses  of  the  legislature  on  December  16th,  1840.  | 
The  office  to  which  he  had  been  triumphantly  elected  was  one  of 
more  honor  and  dignity  than  responsibility.  The  followers  of 
Jefferson  who  had  formed  the  first  constitution  of  Ohio  had  assigned 
to  the  chief  magistrate  few  duties.  In  no  state  constitution  were 
jealousy  of  executive  power  and  fear  of  executive  patronage  more 
strongly  marked.  The  governor  did  not  have  the  power  to  veto  any 
act  of  the  general  assembly  and,  in  matters  of  legislation,  he  could 
only  make  recommendations  and  give  information  of  the  state  of  the 
government.  There  was  not  one  important  office  that  could  be 
filled  by  his  appointment  except  in  case  of  a  vacancy  occurring  in 
the  recess  of  the  legislature. 

Although  Corwin  was  chief  magistrate  of  Ohio  and  commander- 
in-chief  of  its  army  and  militia,  almost  all  that  was  expected  of  him 
was  to  write  an  annual  message,   sign  the  commissions  of  the  state 
and  act  upon  applications  for  reprieves  and  pardons.     The  salary  of) 
the  office  was  fifteen  hundred  dollars  and  the  state  did  not  furnish  an 
executive  mansion.      It  had  been  the  custom  from  the  organization 
of  the  state  government  for  the  governor  to  reside  at  his  home  and 
to  make  such  visits  to  the  capital  as  his  public  duties  required.      The 
majority  of  Corwin's  predecessors  had  been  farmers  who  found  that  I 
the  duties  of  the  office  did  not  much  interfere  with  their  labors  of 
planting   and    harvesting.      Not    until    1844    did    a    governor  make  I 
Columbus  his  residence  during  his  term  of  office. 

During  his  term  of  two  years  Governor  Corwin  was  much  of  the   / 
time  at  his  home  in  Lebanon  and  continued  the  practice  of  his  pro-  , 
fession.     The  office  did  not  afford  much  scope  for  his  talents.      He  I 
is  reported  to  have  said  that  his  principal  duties  were    "to  appoint 
notaries  public  and  to  pardon  convicts  in  the  penitentiary."      In  the 
exercise  of  his  constitutional  prerogative  of  granting  reprieves  and 

(39) 


40  LIFE    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

pardons  his  course  was  such  as  to  bring  upon  him  the  animadversion 
of  those  who  were  actuated  by  a  less  humane  spirit  and  held  less 
philosophical  views  of  punishment.  He  had  opposed  when  a  young 
member  of  the  legislature  the  degrading  punishment  of  public  whip 
ping,  and  when  chief  magistrate  he  did  not  approve  of  the  stigma 
of  disfranchisement  fastened  upon  those  sentenced  to  the  peniten 
tiary.  This  disfranchisement  under  the  law  at  that  time  rendered 

\ ' 

,'them  forever  incompetent  to  be  electors,  jurors  or  witnesses,  or  to 

hold  any  office  of  honor  or  profit  in  the  state,  unless  they  received 
from  the  governor  a  general  pardon  under  his  hand  and  seal.  He 
made  it  a  special  inquiry  to  ascertain  the  habits  and  deportment  of 
the  prisoner  during  his  term  of  imprisonment,  and  when  there  was 
evidence  of  some  reformation  and  a  desire  to  lead  a  better  life  he 
would  sign  a  pardon  to  take  effect  a  day  or  two  before  the  expiration 
of  his  term  of  service  and  would  thus  restore  to  the  released  convict 
the  rights  and  privileges  of  citizenship.  This  course,  which  now 
seems  eminently  wise  and  laudable,  was  regarded  by  some  as  an 
effort  to  defeat  the  ends  of  justice  and  was  used  by  his  political 
opponents  against  him  when  he  was  a  candidate  for  re-election. 

Governor  Corwin's  two  annual  messages  to  the  general  assembly 
are  proofs  of  his  ability  to  express  himself  with  the  pen  in  a  per 
spicuous  style.  They  are  principally  but  not  exclusively  devoted  to 
state  matters,  and  while  the  policy  of  the  general  government  is 
sometimes  freely  commented  upon,  it  is  done  courteously.  Few  of 
the  subjects  discussed  in  these  two  papers,  important  as  they  may 
have  been  to  the  people  of  Ohio  at  the  time,  would  now  be  read 
with  interest.  Both  messages  exhibit  a  deep  interest  in  the  educa 
tion  of  the  children  of  the  state.  The  common  school  system""  of 
~~0h~To  had  been  established  fifteen  years,  but  had  not  yet  outlived 
opposition.  Governor  Vance  had  said  that  it  had  been  met  by 
"the  combined  force  of  avarice,  wealth  and  ignorance."  The  sys 
tem  added  much  to  the  rate  of  taxation.  In  the  interest  of  retrench 
ment  the  legislature  had  abolished  the  office  of  state  superintendent 
of  common  schools  and  devolved  the  duties  of  the  office  upon  the 
secretary  of  state.  Governor  Corwin  disapproved  of  this,  and 
recommended  that  the  duties  of  the  office  be  placed  upon  one  whose 
exclusive  business  it  should  be  to  discharge  them.  He  also  disap 
proved  of  an  act  which  reduced  the  school  funds  of  the  state  by  an 
amount  of  fifty  thousand  dollars  as,  in  appearance  at  least,  'a  blow 
aimed  at  the  school  system,  and  earnestly  recommended  that  if 


GOVERNOR.  41 

the  rates  of  taxation  must  be  reduced  the  reduction  should  be  made 
to  fall  on  other  subjects,  many  of  which,  he  said,  would  readily  sug 
gest  themselves  to  the  wisdom  of  the  legislature,  as  interests  which 
could  safely  be  postponed  to  that  of  general  education.  "It  is  by 
educating  poor  children,"  he  said,  "that  we  place  them  to  some 
extent  at  least  upon  a  footing  of  equality  with  the  fortunate  inheri 
tors  of  rich  estates." 

"During  the  two  years  Mr.  Corwin  was  governor,"  says  A.  P.  Russell, 
"he  was  proverbially  in  the  best  of  humor.  All  the  time  he  could  get  from 
public  duties  was  spent  at  his  home  in  Lebanon.  He  seemed  running  over 
Avith  fun  and  anecdotes,  and  he  never  lacked  appreciative  listeners  when  he 
wished  to  talk.  Very  busy  people  avoided  him  as  a  dangerous  temptation. 
Young  men  especially  gathered  about  him  with  big  eyes  of  wonder.  They 
had  no  envies  or  jealousies  to  prevent  them  from  admiring  him.  To  them 
he  discoursed  with  the  utmost  freedom.  With  them,  when  his  mind  was  full 
est  and  freest,  he  indulged  without  limit  in  monologue.  He  was  fond  of 
young  men;  especially  those  who  were  inclined  to  improve  themselves  and 
who  seemed  to  be  promising." 

Genial  and  amiable  as  was  the  governor,  the  winds  of  party  strife 
blew  tempestuously  over  the  state.  After  their  stunning  defeat  in 
1840  the  Democrats  of  Ohio  obtained,  the  next  year,  a  small  major 
ity  in  both  branches  of  the  general  assembly.  An  extra  session  of 
the  legislature,  which  met  on  July  25th,  1842,  proved  to  be  the 
stormiest  in  the  history  of  the  state.  It  was  convened  for  the  pur 
pose  of  re-districting  the  state  for  representatives  in  congress.  The 
passage  of  a  law  of  congress  to  apportion  representatives  among  the 
states  under  the  census  of  1840  had  been  delayed  so  long  that  the 
regular  session  of  the  Ohio  legislature  was  ended  before  the  appor 
tionment  was  made.  The  two  parties  were  almost  equally  balanced,, 
the  Democrats  having  a  slight  ascendency  in  each  house.  In  order 
to  prevent  the  majority  from  re-districting  the  state  in  a  manner  that 
would  have  given  them  almost  all  the  members  of  congress,  the 
Whigs  adopted  the  bold  and  unprecedented  course  of  tendering  their 
•  resignations  in  a  body,  thus  leaving  both  houses  without  a  quorum 
of  two-thirds.  This  was  long  known  in  the  history  of  Ohio  politics 
as  "the  Whig  absquatulation." 

On  the  day  after  the  resignations  were  tendered  the  speaker  of 
the  senate  issued  his  warrant  to  the  sergeant-at-arms,  commanding 
him  to  bring  into  the  senate  the  absent  members.  That  officer 
reported  that  he  had  read  the  warrant  to  the  persons  named  therein, 


42  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

and  that  they  ail  refused  to  obey,  declaring  they  were  no  longer  sen 
ators,  and  that  he  could  not  compel  the  attendance  of  the  persons 
named  without  an  application  to  the  governor  for  aid  from  the  mili 
tary  forces.  A  similar  warrant  was  issued  in  the  house  and  a  similar 
report  made.  There  being  no  quorum,  the  members  dispersed  with 
out  accomplishing  the  purpose  for  which  they  had  met.  Indefensi 
ble  and  revolutionary  as  now  seems  the  course  of  the  Whigs  at  this 
session,  their  leaders  were  all  renominatecl  and  re-elected,  and  some 
of  them  were  afterwards  chosen  to  high  "offices  in  the  state,  and  na 
tion,  among  whom  may  be  mentioned  Benjamin  F.  Wade,  Robert  C. 
Schenck  and  Seabury  Ford.  It  was  a  year  before  this  that  Abraham 
Lincoln,  with  two  other  Whigs  in  the  Illinois  legislature,  jumped  out 
of  the  window  to  break  a  quorum,  but  he  afterwards  regretted  that 
he  had  entered  into  this  arrangement  as  he  deprecated  everything 
which  savored  of  revolution . 

The  exciting  scenes  of  the  extra  session  increased  party  feeling 
throughout  the  state,  and  the  temporary  triumph  of  the  Whig 
minority  added  bitterness  to  the  campaign  in  which  Governor  Cor- 
vvin_was  a  candidate  for  re-election.  The  stormy  session  terminated 
two  months  before  the  state  election  in  October.  Corwin's  opponent 
was  again  Wilson  Shannon,  and  the  contest  was  an  animated  one. 
The  Whigs  lost  the  state.  Both  branches  of  the  legislature  became 
strongly  Democratic,  and  William  Allen  was  re-elected  United  States 
senator  by  a  large  majority  on  joint  ballot.  Corwin's  opponent 
received  only  a  small  plurality.* 

At  this  election,  for  the  first  time  in  Ohio,  the  radical  anti-slav 
ery  men  or  Abolitionists  put  forward  a  candidate  for  governor. 
This  candidate  did  not  receive  any  votes  in  some  of  the  counties ;  in 
Corwin's  own  county  he  had  only  seven,  but  in  the  Western  Reserve 
he  had  a  considerable  number.  As  the  aggregate  vote  for  the  Abo 
lition  candidate  exceeded  the  Democratic  plurality  and  came  chiefly 
from  strong  Whig  counties,  the  impression  was  general  that  the 
Abolitionists  by  putting  forward  a  candidate  of  their  own  who  had 
no  prospect  of  an  election  had  defeated  Mr.  Corwin.  This  impres 
sion  was  probably  erroneous,  for  if  Corwin  had  received  seven- 

N^ 

*Vote  for  governor,  October,  1842: 

Wilson  Shannon   (Democrat) 129,011 

Thomas  Corwin  (Whig)     -     -     -          125,118 

Leicester  King  (Liberty) 5>3I2 

Shannon  over  Corwin,    --.. 3*893 


GOVERNOR.  43 

eighths  of  the  Abolition  vote  and  his  opponent  only  one-eighth,  he 
would  still  have  been  defeated.  It  may  also  be  noted  that  the 
year  1842  was  one  of  general  defeat  for  the  Whigs,  the  federal  house 
of  representatives  elected  that  year  having  a  large  Democratic  major 
ity.  The  belief,  however,  that  three-fourths  of  the  Abolition  voters 
came  from  their  own  ranks  caused  the  Whigs  of  Ohio  to  look  with 
much  ill-will  upon  the  earnest  anti-slavery  men  who  favored  the 
organization  of  a  new  political  party.  They  regarded  the  Liberty 
party  as  an  aid  to  the  Democrats,  and  while  there  were  more  anti- 
slavery  Whigs  than  anti-slavery  Democrats,  there  was  more  hatred 
of  the  Abolitionists  among  the  Whigs  than  among  the  Democrats. 

Corwin  took  his  defeat  philosophically,  and  good-humoredly 
attributed  it  to  the  Whig  voters  who  staid  at  home  on  election  day 
to  cut  their  buckwheat.  It  was  his  first  and  only  defeat  at  the  polls, 
and  it  served  to  increase  rather  than  lessen  the  esteem  and  affection 
with  which  he  was  held  by  his  party  associates.  When  the  next 
Whig  state  convention  was  held  he  was  still  the  leader  and  the  most 
popular  man  of  his  party  in  Ohio.  No  man  was  ever  more  highly 
honored  by  a  state  convention  than  was  ex-Governor  Corwin  at  the 
Ohio  state  Whig  convention  which  met  at  Columbus  in  January, 
1844.  He  was  made  president  of  the  convention  and  was  tendered 
a  unanimous  re-nomination  and  urgently  solicited  to  be  a  candidate 
for  the  third  time  for  governor.  This  he  declined  in  a  speech  which 
was  not  reported  and  preserved,  but  was  pronounced  one  to  be 
remembered  a  life  time  by  those  who  heard  it.  The  convention 
then  placed  his  name  at  the  head  of  the  Ohio  electoral  ticket  for 
Clay  and  Frelinghuysen,  next  to  the  nomination  for  governor,  the 
highest  honor  the  convention  could  bestow.  Before  the  adjournment 
the  following  highly  complimentary  resolution  was  offered  by  the 
venerable  ex-Governor  Jeremiah  Morrow,  who  had  retired  from  offic 
ial  life,  but  was  present  as  a  delegate,  and  it  was  adopted  with  vocif 
erous  acclamation  by  the  large  assembly : 

'•'•Resolved,  That  in  Thomas  Corwin  we  recognize  a  patriot,  a  statesman r 
an  orator,  a  man  of  the  people  and  a  champion  of  their  rights, — a  man 
whom  Ohio  is  proud  to  call  her  own.  We  esteem  him  and  we  love  him." 

This  resolution  and  the  loud  calls  of  the  convention  brought 
another  response  from  the  orator  who  for  an  hour  and  a  half,  in  the 
language  of  a  published  report  of  the  proceedings,  enchained  his 
audience  in  breathless  attention  or  called  from  them  shouts  of 
applause. 


44  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

In  the  campaign  of  1844  the  ex-governor  was  a  conspicuous 
speaker  and  rendered  effective  service  for  the  Whig  state  ajid 
national  tickets.  He  was  now  the  most  famous  and  popular  political 
orator  in  the  country.  The  announcement  of  his  name  was  suffi 
cient  to  insure  a  large  meeting.  He  addressed  thousands  day  after 
day.  Never  was  he  more  eloquent.  He  pleaded  for  his  cause  with 
V  his  whole  being.  He  believed  the  annexation  of  Texas  would  bring 
the  greatest  perils  to  the  nation.  At  times  he  would  move  a  vast 
multitude  by  the  power  of  his  pathos  and  their  eyes  would  become 
misty ;  again,  he  would  arouse  them  to  loud  laughter  by  his  wit,  but 
none  of  his  hearers  would  be  left  in  doubt  of  his  entire  sincerity. 

In  this  campaign  it  was  the  policy  of  the  Whigs  to  represent 
Polk  as  a  political  nonentity  and  although  he  had  served  fourteen 
years  in  congress,  had  been  twice  speaker  and  once  governor,  as  a 
man  entirely  unknown  to  the  nation.  The  Whig  orators  studied  out 
new  methods  of  contrasting  the  illustrious  Clay  with  the  renownless 
Polk.  At  a  large  meeting  at  Carthage  near  Cincinnati,  the  attend 
ance  was  estimated  at  eight  thousand  and  Corwin  was  the  principal 
speaker.  After  dwelling  upon  the  abilities  and  distinguished  public 
services  of  Henry  Clay  he  came  to  the  candidate  of  the  Democrats, 
and  asked,  "Whom  have  they  nominated?  One  James  K.  Polk,  of 
Tennessee."  Then  after  a  pause  and  turning  his  head  from  one 
side  of  the  audience  to  the  other  he  added,  "After  that,  who  is 
safe?" 

The  Whigs  lost  the  presidency,  but  the  electoral  vote  of  Ohio 
was  cast  for  Clay.  The  Whigs  of  that  state  also  elected  their  candi 
date  for  governor  and  secured  a  decided  majority  in  both  branches  of 
the  general  assembly,  insuring  Corwin's  election  to  the  United 
States  senate. 

Governor  Corwin  was  called  on  by  the  citizens  of  his  town  to 
deliver  addresses  of  welcome  to  two  ex-presidents  of  the  United 
States.  In  1842  Martin  VanBuren  made  a  journey  to  the  western 
states,  and  it  was  announced  would  arrive  in  Lebanon  on  the  4th 
day  of  June.  The  citizens  of  the  village,  although  most  of  them 
were  opposed  to  him  politically,  determined  to  receive  him  with  the 
respect  due  an  ex-president.  He  was  met  outside  of  the  village 
by  a  brass  band  and  escorted  to  his  hotel,  where  a  number  of  per 
sons  were  assembled,  and  Governor  Corwin,  on  behalf  of  the  citi 
zens  of  his  town,  delivered  a  brief  address  of  welcome.  The  ex- 


EX-GOVERNOR.  45 

president  replied  briefly,  speaking  in  so  low  a  tone  that  his  remarks 
were  only  heard  by  those  nearest  him.  It  is  related  of  one  of  the 
Whig  citizens  who  disapproved  of  any  public  demonstration  of  honor 
and  respect  to  the  lately  defeated  candidate  for  president,  that  he 
continued  to  work  vigorously  with  his  hoe  in  his  garden  by  the  road 
side  as  the  band  and  the  ex-president  passed  by,  studiously  keeping 
his  back  turned  to  the  road. 

The  next  year  the  venerable  John  Quincy  Adams  accepted  the 
invitation  to  deliver  the  address  at  the  laying  of  the  corner-stone  of 
the  Cincinnati  observatory.  He  made  the  long  journey  from  his 
home  at  Quincy  by  easy  stages,  and  it  was  announced,  would  arrive 
in  Lebanon  on  November  7th,  1843.  This  was  learned  with  much 
satisfaction,  and  the  citizens  of  the  town  made  extensive  preparations 
for  the  reception  of  the  honored  statesman.  JMr^Carwin-was-  made 
chairman  of  the  reception  committee  .and .  selected  to  deliver  the 
address  of  welcome.  Mr.  Adams  reached  Lebanon  on  the  day 
announced  for  his  arrival,  and  was  met  a  short  distance  from  the 
town  by  citizens  in  carriages  and  on  horseback.  The  public  recep 
tion  took  place  at  the  Baptist  church.  Mr.  Corwin's  address  to  the 
ex-president  was  truly  beautiful  His  remarks  have  fortunately  been 
preserved  and  are  found  in  the  published  collection  of  his  speeches. 
Mr.  Adams  was  much  touched  by  the  address  and  the  welcome  of 
the  people.  In  his  response  lie  referred  to  the  flattering  manner  in 
which  he  had  been  received  in  Ohio  from  the  time  he  had  entered 
the  borders  of  the  state  at  Cleveland  a  week  before.  In  every  city 
and  village  through  which  he  had  passed  he  had  been  surrounded 
by  the  people,  and  the  uniform  expression  to  him  had  been  "Wel 
come  to  Ohio."  Referring  to  the  address  of  Mr.  Corwin  he  said 
there  ought  to  be  a  blush  of  shame  upon  his  cheek  after  the  unmer 
ited  panegyric  bestowed  upon  him  by  his  eloquent  friend. 

"I  must  confess,"  continued  Mr.  Adams,  "that  my  friend's  address  has 
deeply  affected  me.  To  that  gentleman's  voice  in  the  halls  of  the  national 
legislature  in  past  years  I  was  accustomed  ever  to  listen  with  pleasure,  and 
had  been  constrained  to  love  and  admire  him  not  less  for  the  qualities  of  his 
heart  than  for  the  strength  and  vigor  of  his  mind;  and  when  he  was  called 
from  his  seat  in  congress  to  the  chief  magistracy  of  this  great  state,  I  could 
hardly  determine  which  feeling  was  most  prominent  in  my  bosom,  joy  at  his 
elevation  or  regret  for  the  loss  of  his  eloquence  in  debate  and  wisdom  in 
counsel  in  our  national  assembly." 


IN  THE  SENATE. 


Three  days  after  the  legislature  of  Ohio  convened,  on  December 
2nd,  1844,  with  a  Whig  majority  in  both  houses,  Corwin  was  elected 
a  United  States  senator,  for  the  full  term  of  six  years  from  March 
4th,  1845.*  Fourteen  years  had  elapsed  since  a  Whig  of  Ohio  had 
been  elected  to  the  senate,  and  eight  years  since  the  retirement  of 
Thomas  Ewing,  the.J_ast  Whig  senator  of  the  state.  Corwin  was 
elected  to  succeed  Benjamin  Tappan,  a  Democrat;  his  colleague 
from  Ohio  was  first  William  Allen,  a  Democrat,  and  afterwards  Sal 
mon  P.  Chase,  elected  by  a  combination  of  Democrats  and  Free 
Soilers.  In  his  term  of  service  Clay,  Webster  and  Calhoun,  now 
old  men,  were  seen  together  in  the  senate  for  the  last  time.  Among 
the  new  senators  who  with  Corwin  took  their  seats  for  the  first  time 
in  the  twenty-ninth  congress,  were  Lewis  Cass,  John  A.  Dix,  Daniel 
S.  Dickinson,  Reverdy  Johnson  and  General  Sam  Houston.  The 
United  States  senate  never  before  or  since  presented  a  more  brilliant 
array  of  talent,  and  it  was  then  without  doubt  the  ablest  legislative 
body  in  the  world. 

Important  events  occurred  in  the  year  which  elapsed  between 
Mr,  Corwin's  election  as  senator  and  the  assembling  of  congress  in 
regular  session  in  December,  1845. — President  Tyler  and  both  houses 
of  congress  assumed  that  the  election  of  Polk  was  an  approval  by 
the  people  of  the  annexation  of  Texas,  and  on  March  1st,  1845, 
only  three  days  before  Tyler's  retirement  from  the  presidency,  the 
joint  resolution  incorporating  the  republic  of  Texas  with  the  United 
States  was  adopted  and  immediately  approved  by  the  president.  As 
Texas  was  at  war  with  Mexico,  the  annexation  practically  established 
a  state. of  war  between  the  United  States  and  Mexico.  Almonte, 
the  Mexican  minister  at  Washington,  demanded  his  passports  and 

*Vote  on  joint  ballot  in  the  Ohio  general  assembly  for  United  States  senator, 
December  5th,  1844:  Thomas  Corwin  (Whig),  60;  David  T.  Disney  (  Democrat), 
46;  Ebenezer  Lane  (Whig),  I. 

(46) 


IN    THE    SENATE.  47 

left  the  country.  It  was  only  a  question  of  time  when  hostilities 
would  begin.  The  Texans  asked  President  Polk  to  send  an  army  for 
their  protection,  and  General  Zachary  Taylor  was  ordered  to  concen 
trate  an  efficient  military  force  on  the  border  between  Texas  and 
Mexico. 

Corwin  must  have  disappointed  some  of  the  admirers  of  his  ora 
tory  who  had  assisted  in  elevating  him  to  the  senate  if  they  expected 
him  to  employ  his  abilities  as  a  speaker  from  the  beginning  of  his 
career  in  that  body  and  to  appear  frequently  in  the  debates.  As  in 
the  house,  so  in  the  senate,  he  seldom  obtruded  his  views  upon  his 
fellow  members.  He  allowed  the  whole  of  his  first  session  to  pass 
without  once  extending  his  remarks  upon  any  question  to  such  a 
length  as  to  entitle  them  to  be  called  a  speech.  How  long  a  new 
member  of  a  legislative  body  should  be  a  listener  rather  than  an 
instructor,  an  apprentice  rather  than  a  master,  is  a  question  of  taste 
which  the  new  member  must  determine  for  himself.  Mr.  Corwin's 
course  as  a  new  member  of  the  house  and  afterwards  of  the  senate 
was  in  marked  contrast  with  that  of  the  great  leader  of  his  party, 
Henry  Clay,  who  when  a  young  man  made  his  entrance  into  congress 
as  a  senator  elected  to  fill  an  unexpired  term,  and  on  the  fourth  day 
after  taking  his  seat  offered  a  resolution  concerning  the  federal  cir 
cuit  courts,  and  after  brief  intervals,  others  on  various  subjects,  one 
of  which  proposed  an  amendment  to  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States,  and  throughout  his  first  session  participated  freely  in  the  de 
bates  with  the  oldest  and  ablest  senators. 

It  was  not  until  the  Mexican  war  was  in  progress  that  Corwin 
took  a  prominent  part  in  the  debates.  His  first  remarks  of  any  con 
siderable  length  were  made  at  the  second  session  of  his  term  on  a 
proposition  to  grant  a  warrant  for  a  half  section  of  land  to  each  sol 
dier  of  the  war.  The  proposition  met  with  objections  from  some 
influential  senators.  Mr.  Corwin  spoke  at  length  in  favor  of  the 
grant.  The  discussion  arose  while  a  bill  for  the  increase  of  the  army 
was  before  the  senate,  and  was  continued  from  time  to  time  during 
the  consideration  of  that  bill,  Mr.  Corwin  speaking  on  four  days. 
The  debate  was  chiefly  between  Corwin  and  Benton.  The  remarks 
of  Corwin  in  favor  of  land  bounties  to  the  soldiers  of  the  Mexican 
war  were  made  in  the  same  session  in  which  he  delivered  his  great 
speech  against  the  further  prosecution  of  that  war.  There  was  n_o 
inconsistency  in  his  course,  for  while  he  denounced  the  war  as_an 
unrighteous  one,  at  no  time  did  he  oppose  a  liberal  payment  of  the 


48  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

men  who  bore  arms  at  the  call  of  the  nation's  rulers.  It  should  also 
be  remembered  that  his  remarks  in  favor  of  soldiers'  land  bounties 
were  begun  a  month  before  the  delivery  of  his  famous  Mexican  war 
speech.  Had  they  been  spoken  afterwards  he  might  have  been  sus 
pected  of  a  desire  to  quell  the  storm  of  adverse  criticism  which  he 
raised  by  his  bold  denunciation  of  the  war. 

His  ..-speech  .on  the  Mexican  war,  delivered  February  llth, 
1847,  was  the  most  important  and  memorable  effort  of  his  life.  In 
this  speech  he  maintained.. thaljhejffar.  AVES  an  unjust  and  .dishonor 
able  one ;  that  it  had  been  declared  and  commenced  not  by  congress 
but  by  the  president,  and  that  the  pretense  of  the  advocates  of  the 
war  that  the  territory  in  dispute  Jiad  belonged  to  Texas  and  not  to 
Mexico  was  an  egregious,  palpable  misrepresentation  and  a  bold  falsi 
fication  of  history;  and  he  again  gave  expression  to  solemn  warnings 
of  the  domestic  commotions  and  national  perils  which  must  inevit 
ably  follow  territorial  aggrandizement  All  this  had  been  declared 
again  and  again  by  the  Whigs  and  was  believed  by  many  Democrats, 
but  he  went  a  step  further  and  anncumced.  his_detomiuation  by-his 
vote  to  withhold  supplies  for  the-  further  prosecution  of  the  unholy 
war.  This  was  a  bold  step.  He  knew  the  responsibility  he  assumed 
and  the  denunciations  which  awaited  him.  HeJknew,  too,  ^that  -he 
was  separating  himself  from  his  party  associates.  In  the  spe.ech  is  a 
reference  to  the  number  he  had  found  who  were  supposed  to  agree 
with  him  on  the  question  of  voting  supplies  at  the  bidding  of  the 
president.  "There  were  not  five  of  us,  but  only  three.  And  when 
these  votes  were  called  and  I  was  compelled  to  separate  myself 
from  almost  all  around  me,  I  could  have  cried  as  did  the  man  of  Uz 
in  his  affliction  in  the  elder  time,  '  What  time  my  friends  wax  warm 
they  vanish,  when  it  is  hot  they  are  consumed  out  of  their  places.'  " 
The  "three  of  us"  were  Webster,  Crittenden  and  Corwin,  who  had 
held  a  conference,  and  as  Corwin  understood,  had  tacitly  agreed  not 
to  vote  for  appropriations  for  a  war  of  conquest,  but  when  the  roll 
was  called  Corwin's  friends  did  not  support  him  with  their  votes. 

The  orator  was  reproached  by  some  of  the  more  timid  members 
of  his  party  for  taking  the  right  position  at  a  wrong  time.  But  why 
was  the  speech  ill-timed  ?  It  was  not  made  when  the  army  was  in  a 
stress.  Victory  after  victory  had  followed  the  troops  of  the  United 
States.  Mexico  had  been  shown  to  be  weak  and  helpless.  The 
speech  was  made  on  a  bill  appropriating  three  millions,  a  sum  asked 
by  the  president  for  the  purpose  of  negotiating  a  change  of  the 


IN    THE    SENATE.  49 

boundaries,  the  result  of  which  was  explained  to  be  territorial  ces 
sions  from  Mexico.  Corwin  had  voted  for  supplies  for  the  war  from 
the  first ;  even  at  the  preceding  session  he  had  voted  for  a  bill  similar 
to  the  one  under  consideration.  This  was  before  the  army  had  pen 
etrated  far  into  Mexico  and  before  the  purpose  of  the  war  had  been 
announced  by  the  supporters  of  the  administration  to  be  the  acqui 
sition  of  territory.  He  had  hoped  that  with  the  appropriations  asked 
there  might  be  obtained  an  honorable  peace,  and  the  shame  and 
crime  of  a  cruel  and  aggressive  war  against  a  weak  and  defenseless 
nation  avoided. 

The  philippic  against  the  Mexican  war  has  taken  its  place  among 
the  half  dozen  speeches  delivered  in  congress  which  stand  out  singly 
as  the  most  memorable  of  American  orators  most  distinguished  for 
consummate  ability  and  parliamentary  eloquence.  It  is  of  enduring 
interest^  its  theme  is  a  disgraceful  war  of  which  the  better  portion 
of  the  American  people  have  always  been  ashamed,  one  for  which 
apologies  may  be  sought,  but  from  which  no  incentives  to  patriotism 
can  be  derived.  No  speech  in  the  English  language  contains  a  greater 
number  of  passages  of  lofty  eloquence.  Its  concluding  portions 
have  often  been  quoted  as  among  the  finest  specimens  of  Ameri 
can  oratory.  The  speech  created  a  commotion  not  only  in  Ohio  but 
throughout  the  nation.  No  speech  delivered  in  the  United  States 
senate  was  ever  more  widely  read,  more  generally  talked  about, 
more  frequently  quoted,  more  warmly  admired,  more  bitterly  de 
nounced.  The  author  himself  afterwards  said,  with  some  rhetorical 
exaggeration,  that  it  had  caused  him  to  be  burned  in  effigy  in  every 
village  from  Maine  to  Texas  that  had  sent  a  soldier  to  fight  against 
Mexico.  His  political  opponents  seized  upon  some  strong  and 
emphatic  passages  and  pronounced  them  treasonable.  The  expres 
sions  which  became  most  familiar  were  " bloody  hands  "  and  "hos 
pitable  graves."  The  exact  language  of  the  orator  was  :  "  If  I  were 
a  Mexican  I  would  tell  you:  Have  you  not  room  in  your  own  coun 
try  to  bury  your  dead  men  ?  If  you  come  into  mine  we  will  greet 
you  with  bloody  hands  and  welcome  you  to  hospitable  graves." 
The  denunciations  of  political  opponents  were  more  easily  borne 
than  the  reproaches  of  the  more  wary  members  of  his  own  party, 
who,  while  approving  of  his  sentiments,  condemned  him  for  giving 
them  expression.  But  one  of  the  elements  of  greatness  in  the 
speech  was-  the  Honest  and  brave  assertion  of  truth  regardless  of  its 
unpopularity. 
5 


50  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

While  Corwin  was  uttering  his  denunciations  of  the  war  for 
territorial  extension,  Ulysses  S.  Grant  was  a  soldier  in  that  war.  He 
had  gone  into  the  battle  of  Palo  Alto  a  second  lieutenant  under 
Taylor ;  and  sixteen  months  later,  after  being  in  all  the  engagements 
possible  for  one  man,  entered  the  city  of  Mexico  under  Scott. 
After  he  had  become  the  most  illustrious  general  of  the  civil  war 
and  had  been  twice  president,  he  expressed  his  great  regret  that  it 
had  ever  been  his  duty  as  a  soldier  and  a  graduate  of  West  Point  to 
fight  in  the  Mexican  war,  and  in  his  own  memoirs  deliberately  wrote 
that  the  whole  occupation,  separation  and  annexation  of  Texas  were, 
from  the  inception  to  the  final  completion,  a  conspiracy  to  acquire 
territory  out  of  which  slave  states  might  be  formed ;  that  the  south 
ern  rebellion  was  largely  an  outgrowth  of  the  Mexican  war,  and  the 
American  people  got  their  punishment  for  their  transgressions  in  the 
most  sanguinary  and  expensive  war  of  modern  times. 

The  following  letter,  written  by  Henry  Wilson,  afterwards  vice- 
president,  to  Joshua  R.  Giddings,  then  a  member  of  congress,  shows 
the  extraordinary  effect  produced  on  the  public  mind  by  Corwin's 
great  speech.  It  will  be  observed  that  the  date  of  the  letter  is  thir 
teen  days  after  the  delivery  of  the  speech : 

NATICK,  February  24,  1847. 
HON.  J.  R.  GIDDINGS: 

Dear  Sir. — I  have  received  your  favor  of  the  12th  inst.,  and  am 
much  obliged  to  you  for  the  information  communicated.  There  is  a  strong 
feeling  here  in  Massachusetts  in  favor  of  bold  action,  and  the  course  of 
yourself  and  others,  especially  the  Whigs  from  your  state,  meets  the  appro 
bation  of  the  great  mass  of  our  people.  We  are  much  pleased  with  the 
speeches  of  Hudson  and  Ashman,  but  the  people  are  delighted  with  the 
speech  of  Corwin.  He  has  touched  the  popular  heart,  and  the  question 
asked  in  the  cars,  streets,  houses,  and  everywhere  men  assemble  is :  "  Have 
you  read  Tom  Corwin's  speech  ? "  Its  boldness  and  high  moral  tone  meet 
the  feeling  here,  and  the  people  of  New  England  will  respond  to  -it,  and  tens 
of  thousands  want  to  hear  more  from  him.  Tell  him  to  come  out,  though, 
in  favor  of  Wilmot  proviso.  We  all  hope  and  expect  it  of  him.  We  can 
give  him  every  state  in  New  England  if  he  will  take  the  right  ground  against 
slavery.  How  I  should  like  to  vote  for  him  and  some  good  non-slaveholder 

for  vice-president  in  1848 I  suppose  that  Webster,  Clayton,   Mangum 

and  Crittenden  will  be  against  him,  for  his  speech  was  a  terrible  rebuke  to 
to  them  and  I  am  much  mistaken  if  some  of  them  very  readily  forget  or 
forgive  him.  Their  position  is  a  most  disgraceful  one,  and  I  do  not  see  how 
they  are  to  get  out  of  it.  I  hope  you  will  use  every  effort  to  bring  our 

friends  right 

Yours  truly, 

HENRY  WILSON. 


IN    THE    SENATE.  51 

After  the  delivery  of  the  Mexican-war  speerh  large  numbers  of 
Whig  politicians  and  some  newspapers  advocated  the  nomination  of 
Cprwin  for  president.  Horace  Greeley  wrote  to  Giddings  that  Cor- 
win  was  his  first  choice  for  president  and  Seward  for  vice-pres 
ident,  licfore  the  \Vhii;-  national  convention  met  in  Philadelphia, 
TTaylor,  Clay  and  Webster  became  the  leading  candidates.  When 
General  Taylor  was  nominated  Clay  did  not  conceal  his  dissatisfac 
tion  and  refused  either  to  speak  or  write  in  support  of  the  Whig  na 
tional  ticket.  Webster  declared  the  nomination  one  not  fit  to  be 
made  and  only  made  a  few  speeches  on  the  eve  of  the  election. 
Senator  Corwin  gave  a  hearty  support  to  Taylor  and  spoke  for  the 
Whigs  throughout  his  state  in  the  campaign.  He  earnestly  urged 
his  Free  Soil  friends  to  vote  with  the  Whigs,  but  the  large  vote  for 
Van  Buren  gave  the  electoral  vote  of  Ohio  to  Lewis  Cass. 

After  the  conclusion  of  the  war,  the  question  of  slavery  in  the 
large  region  acquired  from  Mexico  was  one  of  contention  in  congress 
and  seemed  to  threaten  the  union  of  the  states.  The  right  of  con 
gress  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  territories  was  boldly  denied  by  south 
ern  members.  In  the  senate  Mr.  Corwin  endorsed  the  principle  of 
the  WTilmot  proviso  and  argued  that  congress  possessed  the  power 
and  that  it  was  its  duty  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  territories.  In 
July,  1848,  he  debated  this  question  with  the  senators  from  South 
Carolina,  Mr.  Calhoun  and  Mr.  Butler.  In  the  same  month  he  made 
another  speech  on  the  same  question,  in  which  he  discussed  at  length 
and  with  profound  ability  the  power  of  congress  over  slavery  in  the 
territories.  He  declared  that  the  original  author  of  the  Wilmot  pro 
viso  was  Thomas  Jefferson,  who  had  drafted  the  clause  prohibiting 
slavery  in  the  ordinance  of  1787.  He  stated  his  position  in  a  man 
ner  that  could  not  be  misunderstood. 

"  I  would  guard,"  said  Corwin,  "against  any  doubt  on  this  subject.  I 
would  so  act  that  there  should  be  nothing  left  undone  on  my  part  to  prevent 
the  admission  of  slaves,  for  I  am  free  to  declare  that  if  you  were  to  acquire 
the  country  that  lies  under  the  line,  the  hottest  to  be  found  on  the  globe, 
where  the  white  man  is  supposed  not  to  be  able  to  work,  I  would  not  allow 
you  to  take  slaves  there,  if  slavery  did  not  exist  there  already.  More  than 
that,  I  would  abolish  it  if  I  could,  if  it  did  exist.  These  are  my  opinions  and 
they  have  always  been  the  same." 

While  Mr.  Corwin  afterwards  favored  measures  of  compromise  and 
conciliation  helween  the  north  and  the  south,  he  never  receded  from 
this  position  on  the  question  of  slavery  in  the  territories.  There 


52  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

were  violent  discussions  between  the  pro-slavery  and  the  anti-slavery 
men  in  the  last  days  of  his  service  in  the  senate.  ThfLgxcitement 
spread  over  the  whole  country,  and  there  were  threats  of  a  dissolu 
tion  of  the  union.  Clay  re-appeared  in  the  senate  in  December, 

1849.  He    found    the    feeling  for  disunion    stronger   than   he   ex 
pected.      He    believed  the    stability  of  the   union   seriously  endan 
gered,  and  on  January  24th,  1850,  unfolded  in  the  senate  his  "com 
prehensive  scheme  of  adjustment,"  known   as  the   compromise   of 

1850,  the  last  and  perhaps  the  most  important  of  the  measures  to 
save  the  union  carried  through  congress  by  the  great  and  patriotic 
pacificator.     The  debate  on  Clay's  "omnibus    bill"  was  extremely 
acrimonious.     The  Whigs  were  divided,  some  supporting,  some  op 
posing  it.      President  Taylor  and  his  cabinet  were  against  it.      Web 
ster  supported  the  compromise  in  his  famous  7th  of  March  speech. 
The  anti-slavery  Seward  and  Chase  united  with  the  extreme  pro-slav 
ery  Calhoun  and  Jefferson  Davis  in  opposing  it.      Corwm  approved 
of  the  general  plan  of  adjustment  in  Clay's  compromise,  but  he  sup 
ported  Seward's  amendment  for  the  renewal  of  the  Wilmot  proviso 
by  declaring  that  slavery  should  never  be  allowed  in  either  of  the 
territories   of   Utah  or   New  Mexico,    and   on    this  amendment  he 
voted  with  Seward,  Chase  and  Hale,  and  against  Clay  and  Webster. 

During  the  debate  on  the  question  of  slavery  in  California  and 
the  territories,  which  grew  more  and  more  violent,  Vice-President 
Fillmore  presided  over  the  senate  wi^h  dignity  and  calmness.  He 
maintained  his  impartiality  as  a  presiding  officer,  and  no  one  knew 
which  side  of  the  compromise  measure  he  favored  except  the  presi 
dent,  whom  he  privately  informed  that  if  he  should  be  called  on  to 
give  a  casting  vote  it  would  be  in  favor  of  Mr.  Clay's  bill.  In  the 
midst  of  the  angry  contention  President  Taylor  died,  and  the  new 
cabinet  formed  by  his  successor  was  composed  of  men  who  approved 
of  the  compromise.  Mr.  Corwin  was  thus  unexpectedly  transferred 
from  the  senate  to  the  cabinet.  The  governor  of  Ohio  appointed 
Thomas  Ewing,  who  had  been  a  member  of  Taylor's  cabinet,  to  fill 
the  unexpired  term  in  the  senate,  and  the  legislature  on  assembling 
in  December  elected  Benjamin  F.  Wade,  a  Free  Soil  Whig,  for  the 
succeeding  term  of  six  years  from  the  4th  of  March,  1851. 


IN  THE  CABINET. 

President  Taylor  died  July  9th,  1850.  He  had  attended  the 
celebration  of  the  fourth  of  July,  and  the  long  exposure  to  the 
intense  heat  on  the  warmest  day  of  the  season  and  his  attention  to 
what  he  thought  the  decorum  of  his  station  required  cost  him  his 
life.  On  the  fifth  day  following  he  died  of  a  violent  fever.  On  July 
10th,  Vice-President  Fillmore  was  inaugurated  president  by  the  sim 
ple  official  act  of  taking  the  oath  of  office  in  the  presence  of  the  two 
houses  of  congress  and  without  any  inaugural  address.  All  the 
members  of  the  cabinet  immediately  tendered  their  resignations,  but 
they  were  requested  by  the  president  to  retain  their  places  until 
their  successors  could  be  appointed.  On  July  20th  the  senate  re 
ceived  the  nominations  for  the  new  cabinet.  After  their  confirma 
tion  and  the  changes  made  necessary  by  two  declinations,  the  heads 
of  departments  of  the  administration  of  President  Fillmore  were  as 
follows : 

Daniel  Webster,  of  Massachusetts,  secretary  of  state. 

Thomas  Corwin,  of  Ohio,  secretary  of  the  treasury. 

Alexander  H.  H.  Stuart,  of  Virginia,  secretary  of  the  interior. 

Charles  M.  Conrad,  of  Louisiana,  secretary  of  war. 

William  A.  Graham,  of  North  Carolina,  secretary  of  the  navy. 

John  J.  Crittenden,  of  Kentucky,  attorney-general. 

Nathan  K.  Hall,  of  New  York,  postmaster-general. 

The  date  of  the  appointment  of  all  the  members  was  July  20th, 
1850,  except  two.  James  A.  Pearce,  of  Maryland,  had  first  been 
nominated  for  secretary  of  the  interior ;  he  declined  and  T.  M.  T. 
McKennan  was  substituted,  but  he  held  the  office  only  two  weeks, 
being  compelled  to  resign  on  account  of  ill  health.  Finally  A.  H. 
H.  Stuart,  of  Virginia,  was  appointed  on  September  12th.  Edward 
Bates,  of  Missouri,  was  nominated  for  secretary  of  war;  he  was 
unable  to  serve,  and  Charles  M.  Conrad,  a  member  of  the  house  of 
representatives  from  Louisiana,  was  appointed  on  August  15th. 

(53) 


54  LIFE    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

The  compromise  of  1850_was_of  one  of  the  first  subjects  for 
the  consideration  of  ihe-ne.w_admiiiistratiDii.  Cfeps-x<omnifew&-biii-'- 
failed- in  the  senate,  but  the  measures  comprised  in  it  were  passed  as 
separate  bills  and  sent  to  the  president  for  his  approval.  Mr.  Fill- 
more  was  known  to  favor  these  measures  and  to  have  selected  a  cab 
inet  entertaining  the  same  views.  One  of  the  compromise  measures 
was  the  bill  providing  for  more  efficient  means  for  the  return  of 
escaped  slaves,  known  as  the  fugitive  slave  law  of  1850.  The  presi 
dent  referred  this  bill  to  the  attorney-general  for  his  opinion  whether 
or  not  it  was  in  conflict  with  the  constitution  in  any  of  its  provisions. 
Mr.  Crittenden  prepared  a  written  opinion  sustaining  its  constitu 
tionality.  The  president  concurred  in  this  view  and  signed  it 
together  with  all  the  other  measures  of  the  compromise. 

Congress  adjourned  September  30th,  after  one  of  the  longest 
sessions  on  record.  The  triumph  of  Clay  in  securing  the  passage  of 
his  scheme  of  adjustment  was  regarded  as  the  crowning  glory  of  his 
long  and  eventful  life.  The  great  mass  of  the  people  both  north 
and  south  acquiesced  in  the  compromise.  The  excitement  in  the 
country  abated ;  all  fears  of  a  dissolution  of  the  union  were  dis 
pelled  and  the  distracting  controversy  over  slavery  seemed  to  be  at 
an  end.  Both  the  Whig  and  Democratic  parties  at  their  national 
conventions  endorsed  the  compromise  measures  as  the  final  settle 
ment  of  a  vexed  question.  But  the  fugitive  slave  law  was  bitterly 
denounced  by  the  anti-slavery  men,  and  some  of  its  features  were 
looked  upon  as  harsh  by  many  who  were  not  strong  opponents  of 
slavery.  The  execution  of  the  law  was  successfully  resisted  by  mobs 
in  various  places  in  the  north.  Slaves  were  rescued  from  the  cus 
tody  of  United  States  marshals,  and  state  after  state  enacted  laws 
intended  to  nullify  the  act  of  congress.  It  was  the  duty  of  the 
president  to  execute  the  law  and  he  issued  a  proclamation  calling 
upon  all  officers  to  perform  their  duty  in  its  execution.  Thus  Mr. 
Corwin,  after  a  course  in  the  senate  which  endeared  him  to  the  anti- 
slavery  men  of  the  nation,  was  part  of  an  administration  first  charged 
with  the  duty  under  the  constitution  of  enforcing  a  law  by  the  pro 
visions  of  which  the  whole  power  of  the  government  of  the  United 
States  was  to  be  employed  in  rendering  fugitive  slaves  back  to  bond 
age, — a  law  which  had  much  to  do  in  arousing  and  intensifying 
opposition  to  slavery  throughout  the  free  states  and  in  alienating 
from  the  Whig  party  much  of  its  strength. 

On  taking  charge  of  the  treasury  department  Mr.  Corwin  ap- 


IN    THE    CABINET.  55 

pointed  as  his  private  secretary  and  confidential  clerk  the  poet-editor 
of  Ohio,  William  D.  Gallagher,  who  by  his  connection  as  editor  with 
various  monthly  magazines  and  reviews  published  at  Cincinnati  and 
Columbus,  had  probably  done  more  for  the  cause  of  western  period 
ical  literature  than  any  other  man  in  his  state.  For  ten  years  he 
had  been  one  of  the  editors  of  the  Cincinnati  Gazette,  and  his  anti- 
slavery  sentiments  were  too  pronounced  for  some  of  his  associates. 
He  retained  his  position  with  Mr.  Corwin  until  the  close  of  the  ad 
ministration.  W.  H.  Venable,  in  his  valuable  historical  and  bio 
graphical  work,  "Beginnings  of  Literary  Culture  in  the  Ohio  Val 
ley,"  narrates  the  following: 

"Soon  after  his  going  to  Washington  and  entering  upon  the  discharge  of 
his  duties  in  the  treasury  department,  the  United  States  senate  called  upon 
the  secretary  for  a  report  upon  the  merchant  marine,  internal  and  coastwise. 
Reliable  materials  for  such  a  report  were  not  at  hand,  and  Gallagher,  having 
the  reputation  for  ability  to  'hold  his  tongue,'  was  directed  to  proceed  to  the 
various  interior  customs  districts  of  the  United  States  and  collect  information 
in  regard  to  the  revenue,  and  Edward  D.  Mansfield  was  appointed  to  proceed 
upon  similar  business  to  the  districts  upon  the  Atlantic  seacoast.  All  the  ma 
terials  in,  Gallagher  drew  up  the  report,  which  was  much  commended  in  the 
department. 

"This  over,  he  was  immediately  dispatched  to  the  city  of  New  York  for 
a  million  of  dollars  in  gold,  out  of  the  sub-treasury,  with  which  he  was 
instructed  to  proceed  to  New  Orleans,  by  sea,  and  to  deposit  with  the  United 
States  treasury  in  that  city.  This  was  to  be  a  secret  removal  of  gold, 
required  in  the  settlement  of  Mexican  claims.  The  specie  was  quietly  con 
veyed  to  the  steamship  Georgia,  of  the  Rowland  and  Aspinwall  line,  and 
placed  in  a  chest  under  the  ladies'  cabin  before  any  passengers  were  received 
on  board.  Besides  Mr.  Gallagher,  the  captain  and  the  purser  were  the  only 
souls  on  the  ship  who  were  aware  that  it  bore  golden  freight.  The  voyage 
was  in  mid-winter;  the  weather  proved  stormy. 

"Key  West  was  reached  without  accident,  but  within  an  hour  after  the 
voyage  was  resumed  from  that  point  the  ship  struck  a  rock.  By  skillful  pilot 
ing,  the  rock  was  cleared ;  and,  after  a  much  longer  than  average  trip,  New 
Orleans  was  finally  reached  on  a  Sunday  morning.  As  soon  as  the  passen 
gers  were  ashore,  the  gold  was  loaded  'in  a  wagon  and  hauled  to  the  office  of 
the  assistant  United  States  treasurer,  where  Gallagher  had  it  securely  placed 
under  lock.  With  the  key  in  his  pocket,  he  went  to  the  St.  Charles  hotel 
and  got  breakfast.  That  over,  he  proceeded  to  the  telegraph  office  and  sent 
the  following  dispatch :  'Hon.  Thomas  Corwin,  secretary  of  the  treasury, 
Washington.  All  right.  W.  D.  Gallagher,  New  Orleans.'  Returning  to 
Washington,  Gallagher  resumed  his  labors  as  private  secretary. 


56  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

"One  day  he  found  among  the  papers  which  it  was  his  duty  to  examine  a 
letter  signed  by  some  of  his  old  Cincinnati  friends,  suggesting  that  an  extra 
compensation  of  not  less  than  $1,000  should  be  given'him  as  an  appropriate 
acknowledgment  of  his  general  services  to  the  Whig  party  and  to  the  gov 
ernment.  He  showed  the  letter  to  another  officer  of  the  department,  who 
was  pleased  with  it,  saying :  'There  is  precedent  enough  for  such  extra 
compensation  for  similar  services,  and  it  is  right — but  do  you  think  the  secre 
tary  will  consent  to  it?'  'I  don't  think  he  will  have  an  opportunity  to  con 
sent  to  it,'  Gallagher  replied,  and  threw  the  letter  into  the  grate  and  burned 
it  up.  'You  ought  not  to  have  done  that,  Gallagher,'  remarked  Mr.  H. — , 
'but — '  'Perhaps  not;  but  no  personal  friends  of  mine  shall  ever  be  tempted 
by  other  personal  friends  to  do  anything  for  me  like  that  proposed.'  Within 
an  hour  Mr.  Corwin  came  back  to  the  department  from  a  visit  to  the  presi 
dent.  Mr.  H — ,  goodnaturedly,  mentioned  the  matter  to  him,  whereupon 
he  sent,  by  messenger,  a  request  that  Gallagher  would  step  into  his  room. 
When  the  latter  presented  himself,  Corwin,  with  a  very  solemn  expression 
upon  his  face,  said,  not  angrily,  but  with  sternness  in  his  tone,  'Gallagher, 
are  you  in  the  habit,  as  my  private  secretary,  of  destroying  such  of  my  private 
letters  as  you  happen  not  to  like  ?'  'Governor,  you  have  no  idea  that  I 
could  do  anything  of  the  sort.  I  destroyed  one  such  letter  a  while  ago, 
which  concerned  me  more  than  it  did  you,  and  which,  though  meant  as  an 
act  of  friendship,  ought  not  to  have  been  written  without  my  knowledge 
and  consent.  But  I  suppose  you  know  all  about  it.'  The  expression  on 

Corwin's  face  at  once  relaxed,  as  he  continued,  'I  wonder  if and 

really  supposed  I  would  use  the  public  money  in  that  way.      If  they  did, 
they  were  most  damnably  mistaken." 

In  1851  the  administration  received  private  information  that  led, 
first  to  the  suspicion  and  afterward  to  the  belief,  that  a  Dr.  Gardiner 
had  presented  a  fraudulent  claim  for  indemnity  for  the  loss  of  silver 
mines  in  Mexico,  from  which  he  alleged  that  he  had  been  driven  by 
the  Mexican  government,  and  his  claim  had  been  sustained  by  per 
jury  and  forgery  and  allowed,  and  upon  it  he  had  received  nearly 
$500,000.  While  Gardiner  was  in  Europe,  he  was  notified  by  the 
government  of  the  information  in  its  possession  and  that  the  money 
deposited  by  him  in  banks  had  been  seized  to  await  a  judicial  inves 
tigation.  On  his  return  he  was  arrested  and  imprisoned,  but  sub 
sequently  gave  bail;  he  was  tried,  was  convicted,  and  committed 
suicide ;  and  a  large  portion  of  the  money  he  had  received  was  re 
covered.  Mr.  Corwin,  before  his  appointment  to  the  cabinet,  had 
been  employed  as  an  attorney  in  behalf  of  Gardiner  before  the  com 
missioners  appointed  to  adjudicate  claims  against  Mexico,  and  he 
took  by  assignment  an  interest  in  his  claim.  In  the  party  contests 


IN    THE    CABINET.  57 

of  1852  there  were  charges  of  a  corrupt  connection  of  a  Whig  mem 
ber  of  the  cabinet,  with  a  gigantic  fraud.  A  virulent  attack  on  the 
secretary  of  the  treasury  was  made  in  the  house  of  representatives 
by  a  Democratic  member  from  Ohio,  and  a  committee  of  the  house 
was  appointed  to  investigate  all  the  facts  concerning  Mr.  Corwin's 
connection  with  the  claim.  A  majority  of  the  committee  were 
Democrats,  but  they  did  full  justice  to  a  political  opponent,  and  re 
ported  that  no  testimony  had  been  adduced  before  them  proving  or 
tending  to  prove  that  Mr.  Corwin  had  any  knowledge  that  the  claim 
was  fraudulent  or  that  false  testimony  or  forged  papers  had  been  or 
were  to  be  procured  to  sustain  it.  The  testimony  showed  that  he 
had  no  interest  in  the  claim  after  he  entered  the  cabinet.  Mr.  How- 
land,  of  Texas,  a  Democratic  member  of  the  committee,  magnani 
mously  said:  "I  am  free  to  say  that  the  whole  amount  of  the  testi 
mony  shows  conclusively  that  he  did  not  know  or  believe  that  the 
claim  was  fraudulent." 

As  the  head  of  the  treasury  department,  Mr.  Corwin  favored  in 
the  main  the  line  of  policy  which  he  had  long  advocated  as  a  Whig 
member  of  congress.  The  legislative  branch  of  the  government  be 
ing  under  the  control  of  the  party  differing  in  its  financial  policy 
from  that  of  the  executive  branch,  there  was  little  hope  that  the  recom 
mendations  of  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  would  receive  favorable 
consideration  in  congress.  It  was  not  the  desire  of  Mr.  Corwin  to 
make  sudden  or  radical  changes  in  the  tariff  law  of  1846  then  in 
operation,  or  to  return  to  a  system  of  high  protective  duties.  In 
his  first  annual  report  to  congress,  presented  December  17th,  1850, 
he  said : 

"The  primary  object  to  be  kept  in  view  in  levying  duties  upon  imports, 
is  admitted  to  be  revenue.  It  is  equally  well  established,  as  the  policy  and 
duty  of  the  government,  so  to  discriminate  in  the  levying  of  duties  as,  with 
out  falling  below  the  necessary  amount  of  revenue,  to  give  the  greatest 
encouragement  possible  to  all  the  industrial  pursuits  of  our  people.  One 
feature  of  the  law  of  1846,  in  the  opinion  of  this  department,  is  opposed  to 
both  the  controlling  principles  just  stated.  I  have  reference  to  an  equal 
or  higher  rate  of  duty  on  the  raw  material  than  upon  the  manufactured  arti 
cle  which  is  composed  of  it.  Such  provisions  certainly  take  from  the  manu 
facturer  and  artisan  that  encouragement  which  the  present  law  doubtless,  to 
some  extent,  was  intended  to  afford,  and  also  check  the  importation  of  the 
raw  material  to  a  degree  detrimental  to  the  revenue." 

In  the  last  eight  months  of  President  Fillmore's  term  of  service 


58  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

there  were  three  changes  in  the  cabinet,  but  none  of  them  were  on 
account  of  dissensions  or  any  differences  in  opinion.  William  A. 
Graham,  having  been  nominated  as  the  Whig  candidate  for  vice-pres 
ident,  resigned  and  was  succeeded  as  secretary  of  the  navy  by  John 
P.  Kennedy,  of  Maryland ;  Nathan  K.  Hall,  who  had  studied  law 
with  the  president  and  had  been  his  law  partner  at  Buffalo,  was 
appointed  United  States  judge  for  the  northern  district  of  New  York, 
and  his  place  as  postmaster-general  was  taken  by  Samuel  D.  Hub- 
bard,  of  Connecticut;  and  on  the  death  of  Daniel  Webster,  October 
24th,  1852,  Edward  Everett,  of  Massachusetts,  became  secretary  of 
state. 

Mr.  Corwin  remained  in  the  cabinet  until  the  close  of  the  ad 
ministration.  It  was  the  last  administration  of  the  Whigs.  Never 
again  did  that  party  obtain  control  of  any  branch  of  the  federal  gov 
ernment.  It  was  an  able,  patriotic  and  successful  administration.  It 
left  the  country  in  peace  and  prosperity  and,  excepting  the  troubles 
growing  out  of  the  fugitive  slave  law,  free  from  sectional  bitterness. 
The  cabinet  was  composed  of  able  men,  devoted  to  the  union,  and 
possessing  in  an  eminent  degree  the  confidence  of  the  nation.  It 
was  a  harmonious  cabinet  and  it  is  recorded  that  never  once  in  any 
of  its  meetings  was  heard  a  note  of  angry  dissension ;  and  all  its  mem 
bers  on  retiring  from  office  united  in  a  letter  to  the  president  ex 
pressing  their  confidence  in  his  abilities,  integrity  and  devotion  to 
the  public  service. 


RETURN  TO  CONGRESS. 


On  retiring  from  the  treasury  department  in  1853,  Mr.  Corwin 
was  a  jprivate_citizen  after  an  almost  uninterrupted  public  service  of 
a  quarter  of  a  century.  He  had  continued  the  practice  of  law  while 
in  public  life  until  he  became  a  member  of  the  cabinet.  He  now 
returned  to  his  village  home  to  enjoy  a  respite  from  the  cares  of 
official  station  and  the  labors  of  his  profession.  Not  long  after  his 
return  to  his  home  he  was  induced  to  accept  the  presidency  of  a 
company  organized  to  construct  one  of  the  numerous  railroads  pro 
jected  in  Ohio  at  this  period.  He  cannot  be  said  to  have  become  a 
railroad  president,  as  the  company  of  which  he  was  the  head  did  not 
succeed  in  completing  its  contemplated  work.  The  business  of  this 
company  required  him  to  spend  a  portion  of  his  time  in  Cin 
cinnati. 

An  unfortunate  investment  in  the  securities  of  another  western 
railroad  enterprise  resulted  in  the  almost  complete  impoverishment 
of  himself  and  his  family  and  compelled  him  to  return  to  the  active 
practice  of  his  profession.  He  formed  a  partnership  for  the  practice 
of  law  with  John  Probasco,  an  able  lawyer  of  Lebanon,  who  had 
recently  retired  from  the  bench.  The  office  of  the  firm  was  at  Cin 
cinnati,  but  both  members  retained  their  residence  at  Lebanon.  This 
partnership  was  soon  terminated  by  the  death  of  Judge  Probasco, 
which  occurred  in  1857,  before  he  had  completed  his  forty-fourth 
year.  Mr.  Corwin  then  entered  into  a  partnership  with  his  young 
son-in-law,  George  R.  Sage. 

Though  a  private  citizen,  Mr.  Corwin  could  not  be  an  uncon 
cerned  observer  of  political  events.  If  he  had  any  desire  to  re-en 
ter  public  life  there  was  little  hope  of  official  station  either  in  his 
state  or  in  the  nation  for  one  who  adhered  so  firmly  to  the  old  Whig 
principles  as  did  he.  While  he  was  in  the  cabinet  his  party  had  met 
with  the  most  disastrous  of  its  many  defeats  in  presidential  elec 
tions,  and  at  the  first  state  election  after  his  return  to  his  home  the 


60  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

Democrats  of  Ohio  cast  61,000  more  votes  for  governor  than  the 
Whigs,  and  the  Free  Soil  vote  was  now  well  up  to  that  of  the 
Whigs.  Mr.  Corwin  was  probably  slow  in  yielding  assent  to  the 
truth  which  became  more  and  more  evident  that  the  political  party 
which  had  so  highly  honored  him  and  of  which  he  had  been  so 
bright  an  ornament,  and  which  when  a  middle-aged  man  he  had  as 
sisted  in  organizing,  was  now  to  be  buried  before  he  was  yet  an  old 
man.  The  Free  Soilers  rejoiced  in  its  demise,  and  their  orators  in 
Ohio  told  the  old  line  Whigs  that  their  party  was  not  only  dead 
"but  by  this  time  it  stinketh." 

When  the  young  and  vigorous  Republican  party  sprang  into 
existence  it  cordially  invited  the  affiliation  and  co-operation  of  the 
men  of  all  parties,  however  differing  in  other  respects,  in  carrying 
out  its  one  great  purpose  of  resisting  the  aggressions  of  the  slave 
power.  Some  who  had  never  been  known  as  anti-slavery  men  or 
even  as  opponents  of  the  extension  of  slavery,  seeing  that  the  new 
party  would  certainly  control  the  free  states,  became  its  adherents  and 
were  rewarded  with  office.  Mr.  Corwin's  record  in  congress  in  op 
position  to  the  spread  of  slavery  and  his  bold  denunciation  of  a  war 
inaugurated  by  the  slave  power,  combined  with  his  fame  as  a  politi 
cal  orator  and  his  personal  popularity,  would  have  caused  his  acces 
sion  to  its  ranks  to  be  hailed  with  joy.  But  he  could  not  give  up 
the  principles  he  had  so  long  advocated.  His  party  was  dead,  but 
he  was  still  a  Whig.  In  the  campaign  of  1856  he  was  placed  in  the 
unhappy  position  of  not  being  in  accord  with  the  majority  of  those 
who  had  been  his  warmest  friends  and  supporters.  The  great  mass 
of  the  Whigs  of  Ohio  were  the  supporters  of  Fremont.  Mr.  Cor 
win  had  a  high  regard  for  Fillmore  and  desired  his  election,  but  it 
was  evident  that  the  electoral  vote  of  Ohio  and  of  the  free  states  gener 
ally  would  be  cast  either  for  Fremont  or  Buchanan.  On  the  eve  of 
the  election  he  made  a  single  speech  from  the  steps  of  the  Burnet 
House,  advising  his  friends  in  Ohio  to  vote  for  Fremont  and  south  of 
the  Ohio  river  for  Fillmore  as  the  most  effective  course  to  prevent 
the  success  of  the  party  which  had  repealed  the  Missouri  compro 
mise  and  enacted  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill. 

Mr.  Corwin  had  no  sympathy  with  that  spirit  of  aggressive  op 
position  to  slavery  which  soon  after  made  a  hero  of  John  Brown  and 
was  reafiy,  in  resisting  the  fugitive  slave  law,  to  bring  his  own  state 
into  armed  conflict  with  the  national  authorities.  He  was  devoted 
to  the  union,  and  he  earnestly  urged  a  faithful  observance  of  all  the 


RETURN    TO    CONGRESS.  61 

requirements  and  compromises  of  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States.  The  duty  of  maintaining  the  supremacy  of  the  law  became 
a  frequent  topic  of  his  serious  conversation.  This  was  becoming  an 
unpopular  doctrine,  and  was  heard  with  impatience  by  the  believers 
in  "a  law  higher  than  the  constitution."  Mr.  Corwin  continued  to 
urge  his  views  on  all  proper  occasions  without  regard  to  their  popu 
larity,  and  exhibited  much  the  same  boldness  in  adhering  to  his  con 
victions  of  right  that  he  manifested  in  his  Mexican  war  speech. 

In_1858  Mr.  Corwin's  friends  urged  that  he  return  to  public  life, 
and  he  expressed  a  willingness  to  serve  again  in  congress  if  the  peo 
ple  in  his  district  desired  it.  The  district  consisted  of  the  counties 
of  Warren,  Clinton,  Greene,  Fayette  and  Madison,  all  of  which 
were  Republican,  and  a  nomination  as  the  Republican  candidate 
insured  an  election.  Mr.  Corwin  had  no  claims  to  the  nomination 
on  account  of  party  services,  and  as  there  were  other  aspirants  in 
the  district  for  a  seat  in  congress,  it  was  by  no  means  certain  that 
he  could  be  nominated.  He  permitted  his  name  to  go  before  the 
Republican  convention  of  the  district  as  a  candidate  for  the  nomina 
tion,  and  before  it  assembled  delivered  an  address  in  which  he  made 
a  full  and  frank  statement  of  his  views  on  the  political  questions  at 
issue.  He  spoke  in  a  grove  at  Morrow  in  his  own  county;  his 
speech  was  reported  and  j>rinted  in  the  Cincinnati  daily  papers. 

As  his  views  were  not  on  all  points  in  unison  with  those  of  the 
Republican  leaders,  his  nomination  was  opposed  by  some  influential 
men  of  his  district.  Wm.  H.  P.  Denny,  the  veteran  editor  of  the 
Western  Star  of  Lebanon,  who  had  for  a  score  of  years  been  a  warm 
supporter  of  Corwin,  now  opposed  him,  and  in  printing  his  speech 
put  in  italics  the  passages  which  were  supposed  to  be  in  conflict 
with  good  Republican  doctrine.  The  name  of  Tom  Corwin  and  the 
admiration  and  affection  of  the  people  for  him  gave  him  the  nomina 
tion,  and  he  was  of  course  triumphantly  elected.  It  was  thus  his 
happy  lot  to  be  chosen  to  the  last  congress  in  which  he  sat  not 
strictly  as  a  party  man,  and  he  entered  upon  his  important  trust  at  a 
time  of  national  perils  untrammeled  by  party  allegiance.  His  re-ap 
pearance  in  public  life  was  hailed  with  joy  by  large  numbers  in  va 
rious  parts  of  the  union,  and  it  was  hoped  that  his  conservative 
views,  his  ripe  judgment  and  large  political  experience  would  make 
him  useful  in  allaying  party  virulence  and  sectional  animosity. 

On  the  question  "of  prohibiting  slavery  in  all  the  territories  of 
the  United  States  Mr.  Corwin  was  in  perfect  accord  with  the  plat- 


62  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

forms  of  the  Republican  party,  but  he  could  not  endorse  the  position 
taken  by  some  leaders  of  that  party  that  in  no  event  should  a  new 
state  be  admitted  into  the  union  with  a  constitution  permitting  slav 
ery.  In  a  speech  at  Byron,  Greene  county,  he  was  reported  to 
have  said: 

"The  right  of  congress  to  make  all  needful  regulations  for  the  territo 
ries  he  considered  indisputable,  and  he  would  attach  some  such  rule  as  the 
Wilmot  proviso  to  every  territory  on  its  organization.  He  knew  the  advan 
tages  of  it  in  the  results  of  the  ordinance  of '  87.  Congress  bore  the  same 
relation  to  the  territories  as  a  guardian  did  to  his  ward.  As  a  member  of 
congress,  he  would  act  as  a  faithful  guardian,  bring  up  the  territories  in  the 
way  they  should  go,  and  counsel  them  never  to  depart  from  it.  But  when  a 
territory  was  emerging  into  a  state,  it  was  becoming  of  age.  He  could  do  no 
more  than  point  out  the  benefits  of  its  early  training,  and  if  it  chose  to  devi 
ate  from  his  teaching,  he  could  only  regret  it.  It  was  then,  as  the  minor  be 
come  of  age,  its  own  master.  Congress  having  passed  an  enabling  act,  per 
mitting  it  to  make  a  constitution  and  set  up  for  itself,  could  not,  he  thought, 
consistently  refuse  it  admission  into  the  union  on  account  of  a  clause  in  its 
constitution,  when  we  had  in  the  union  fifteen  states  with  similar  constitu 
tions.  If  we  had  no  power  to  turn  out  states  on  that  account,  we  should  not 
keep  them  out.  Here  he  read  from  the  remarks  of  John  Quincy  Adams — 
.good  authority  with  the  most  ultra  anti-slavery  men — on  the  admission  of 
Arkansas,  showing  that  in  this  view  he  only  re-affirmed  what  that  eminently 
wise  statesman  uttered." 

After  his  nomination  Mr.  Corwin  took  part  in  the  canvass  and 
thousands  gathered  to  hear  him  again  in  the  discussion  of  political 
questions  and  listened  eagerly  to  the  manly  and  independent  expres 
sion  of  his  opinions.  More  than  a  year  elapsed  after  his  election 
before  the  congress  to  which  he  had  been  chosen  assembled,  and  in 
this  time  he  continued  to  mingle  freely  in  the  discussion  of  current 
public  questions  and  participate  in  political  meetings.  He  was  a 
delegate  to  the  Republican  state  convention  of  1859  which  nominated 
William  Dennison  for  governor  and  accompanied  that  gentleman 
through  a  portion  of  the  state  in  the  canvass  which  terminated  in  his 
election.  In  some  of  his  addresses  at  the  hustings  the  distinguished 
orator  would  rise  to  sublime  heights  of  eloquence  and  manifest  an 
earnestness  and  energy  that  produced  a  lasting  impression  upon  the 
miads  of  his  hearers.  He  continued  to  urge  upon  the  people  of  all 
parties  and  creeds  the  sacred  duty  of  maintaining  the  supremacy  of 
the  constitution  and  abiding  by  the  laws  of  the  land ;  and  discounte 
nanced  any  mode  of  redressing  grievances  other  than  that  which  can 


RETURN    TO    CONGRESS.  63 

be  peacefuljvand  legally  applied  by  the  exercise  of  constitutional  pow 
ers..  The  sincerity  of  his  motives  no  one  could  question.  The  tone 
of  his  speeches  throughout  this  period  of  his  life  was  less  calculated 
to  make  his  hearers  strong  partisans  than  patriotic  and  conscientious 
voters. 

The  newspaper  reports  of  Corwin's  addresses  in  political  cam 
paigns  show  one  characteristic  common  to  all  of  them.  Sometimes 
it  was  in  the  beginning ;  sometimes  at  the  close ;  but  he  never  failed 
to  exhort  his  hearers  to  a  conscientious  and  unfailing  exercise  of  the 
right  to  vote,  and  to  admonish  the  people  that  in  this  country  they 
had  the  right  and  the  power  to  make  and  unmake  their  rulers.  Some 
times  he  would  speak  with  scorn  of  those  who  felt  themselves  too 
respectable  and  decent  to  interest  themselves  in  elections ;  sometimes 
he  would  utter  a  solemn  warning  that  a  neglect  or  disregard  of  the 
right  of  suffrage  would  end  in  its  loss.  In  concluding  a  speech  at 
Dayton,  Ohio,  September  30th,  1858,  he  spoke  with  great  effect  on 
this  topic.  The  Dayton  Journal  thus  reported  this  portion  of  his 
speech : 

' '  The  close  of  Governor  Corwin's  speech  was  one  of  the  most  thrilling 
eloquence  and  power.  He  appealed  to  the  people  to  exercise  the  reason  and 
conscience  which  God  had  given  them  to  decide  how  to  vote.  The  power 
conferred  upon  the  voters  of  this  nation  was  a  tremendous  power.  It  was 
one,  for  the  faithful  exercise  of  which  or  the  failure  to  exercise  which,  they 
would  as  he  believed  be  called  to  answer  at  the  great  day.  It  was  a  power 
all  potent  for  good  or  evil ;  and  as  the  Almighty,  in  His  providence,  had 
given  men  brains  to  think  and  consciences  to  tell  them  the  right  from  the 
wrong,  they  could  not  hope  to  escape  a  fearful  reckoning  for  negligence  or 
unfaithfulness. 

"  He  said  that  as  he  had  traveled  through  the  country,  and  beheld  the 
church-spires  and  school-houses,  it  seemed  to  him  incomprehensible  how, 
with  the  advantages  of  education  and  of  instruction  from  the  pulpit,  there 
could  be  a  generation  of  men  who  would  disregard  the  lessons  of  experience 
and  the  teachings  of  history  so  much  as  to  fail  in  the  giving  of  an  intelligent 
and  patriotic  vote. 

"  Governor  Corwin  proceeded,  with  a  glowing  eloquence  of  words  and 
a  sublimity  of  thought,  to  draw  from  sacred  history  the  most  pointed  exem 
plifications  of  the  duty  made  imperative  by  the  divine  command,  to  give 
heed  to  the  things  which  make  for  the  peace  and  honor  and  glory  of  our 
common  country.  The  hand  ot  the  Almighty  was  as  plainly  to  be  seen  in 
the  interposition  in  our  behalf  during  the  revolutionary  struggle,  as  it  was  in 
the  rolling  of  the  waves  of  the  Red  Sea  over  the  hosts  of  Pharaoh  as  they 


64  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

were  pursuing  the  Israelites.  We  could  not  hope  to  escape  the  fate  of  the 
'  chosen  people,'  in  whose  history  were  so  terribly  fulfilled  the  words  of  proph 
ecy,  unless  we  appreciated  our  blessings,  and  struggled  to  preserve  our  birth 
right  ;  and  yet  the  history  of  man  seemed  to  be  the  same  in  all  ages.  Three 
thousand  years  ago,  when  the  Almighty,  by  a  miraculous  exercise  of  His 
power,  had  brought  the  children  of  Israel  out  of  their  Egyptian  captivity,  we 
found  them,  when  it  might  have  been  supposed  that  the  wonder  of  the  mira 
cle  was  still  impressing  them  with  its  awful  grandeur,  worshiping  the  golden 
calf! 

"  The  prophet,  Isaiah,  in  denouncing  the  sins  and  the  punishment  of 
Judah,  had  said  :  '  The  ox  knoweth  his  owner,  and  the  ass  his  master's  crib ; 
but  Israel  doth  not  know — my  people  doth  not  consider.'  The  people  did 
not  '  consider ' — they  did  not  think.  Every  man  should  break  away  from  the 
trammels  of  party — he  should  think — think  for  himself — and  so  discharge  his 
duty,  as  if  knowing  that  upon  him  alone  rested  the  responsibility  of  faithfully 
and  honestly  acting  for  the  welfare  of  the  twenty-six  millions  of  this  nation — 
as  if  he  were  the  only  man  who  had  a  vote — as  if  he  were  possessed  of  des 
potic  power,  and  his  will  was  the  law." 

Mr.  Corwin  took  his  seat  as  a  representative  in  the  thirty-sixth 
congress  in  December,  1859.  A  majority  of  the  representatives 
had  been  elected  as  opponents  of  the  Buchanan  administration  but 
no  party  had  a  clear  majority  and  the  house  was  unorganized  for  two 
months.  The  contest  for  the  speakership  was  a  memorable  one. 
The  minds  of  the  southern  members  were  inflamed  by  the  John 
Brown  raid.  John  Sherman  was  the  Republican  candidate  for 
speaker  and  he  was  nominated  for  that  position  by  Mr.  Corwin. 
Mr.  Sherman  and  a  large  number  of  Republican  members  of  the 
last  congress  had  signed  a  circular  commending  to  the  attention  of 
the  public  a  book  entitled  "Helper's  Impending  Crisis,"  containing 
strong  anti-slavery  sentiments.  Week  after  week  was  spent  in 
heated  debates  on  slavery,  John  Brown  and  Helper's  book,  with  oc 
casional  ballots  for  speaker.  In  the  seventh  week  of  the  contest 
Mr.  Corwin  made  the  longest  of  his  reported  speeches.  There  was 
a  tone  of  sadness  in  his  rambling  remarks ;  he  felt,  he  said,  as  if  he 
were_not  in  the  congress  of  the  United  States  and  he  wished  it  were 
possible  for  the  journal  clerk  to  blot  out  their  proceedings  from  the 
beginning  of  the  session  that  they  might  be  known  no  more  among 
men.  Yet  he  used  his  best  efforts  to  amuse  the  members  and  to  put 
all  sides  in  a  good  humor,  in  order  to  effect  an  organization ;  and 
after  speaking  two  days,  when  he  proposed  to  stop  there  were  calls 
to  go  on.  He  referred  to  his  own  reported  declaration  that  "he 


RETURN    TO    CONGRESS.  65 

would  vote  for  Mr.  Sherman  till  the  last  trump  would  sound,"  and 
said:  "A  better  man  than  I  am  changed  his  mind.  David,  King 
of  Israel,  repented  of  what  he  said  when  he  remarked :  '  I  said  in 
my  haste  that  all  men  are  liars.'  I  concede  that  fact  when  I  state 
now  that  I  am  willing  to  vote  for  almost  anyone  who  can  be  elected." 

When  the  house  was  finally  organized  on  February  1st,  1860, 
by  the  election  of  ex-Governor  William  Pennington,  of  New  Jersey, 
as  speaker,  Mr.  Corwin  was  appointed  chairman  of  the  committee 
on  foreign  affairs.  A  second  extended  speech  made  by  him  at  this 
session  was  delivered  at  the  time  of  the  Democratic  national  conven 
tion  at  Charleston,  when  the  house  met  for  debate  only,  many  mem 
bers  being  absent.  In  these  debates  the  political  situation  was  the 
general  topic  under  consideration,  and  in  the  colloquies  which  natu 
rally  ensued,  Mr.  Corwin  was  drawn  into  controversy  with  many 
members,  and,  with  frequent  interruptions,  occupied  the  floor  on 
two  days.  His  extended  remarks  were  never  revised  for  publication. 

He  was  a  delegate  to  the  national  Republican  convention  at 
Chicago  in  1860,  and  in  the  ensuing  campaign  he  supported  Lincoln 
for  president.  He  was  re-nominated  and  re-elected  to  congress  the 
same  year,  When  the  second  session  of  the  thirty-sixth  congress 
assembled  Lincoln  had  been  chosen  president,  but  was  not  yet  inau 
gurated.  The  actual  work  of  secession  soon  began.  The  sentiment 
of  disunion  spread  with  alarming  rapidity  throughout  the  cotton- 
growing  states,  and  nearly  all  the  senators  and  representatives  from 
those  states  resigned  their  seats  and  favored  a  southern  confederacy. 
Mr.  Corwin  was  appointed  by  the  speaker  chairman  of  a  grand  com 
mittee  of  one  from  each  state  on  the  disturbed  condition  of  the 
country.  No  man  could  with  more  propriety  have  been  placed  at 
the  head  of  a  committee  charged  with  the  consideration  of  such 
grave  questions  when  the  times  were  full  of  passion  and  bitterness. 
His  conservative  views  gave  him  influence  with  such  members  from 
the  south  as  were  still  attached  to  the  union,  while  the  most  radical 
members  from  the  north,  however  much  they  differed  with  him, 
could  not  but  respect  the  sincere  and  patriotic  motives  which  actu 
ated  him. 

The  celebrated  "committee  of  thirty-three,"  of  which  Mr.  Cor 
win  was  chairman,  after  long  consideration  agreed  upon  a  report 
which  embodied  measures  of  conciliation  intended  to  remove  from 
the  minds  of  the  southern  people  any  just  fears  that  their  rights 
under  the  constitution  should  not  be  fully  protected.  Mr.  Corwin 
6 


66  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

spoke  in  support  of  the  recommendations  of  the  committee  on  Jan 
uary  21st,  1861.  There  was  an  angry  debate  upon  the  report  run 
ning  through  several  days.  The  first  series  of  resolutions  reported 
by  the  committee  was  adopted  by  a  vote  of  136  ayes  to  53  noes. 
The  most  important  part  of  the  report  was  a  proposed  amendment 
to  the  constitution  which  would  forever  make  it  impossible  for  con 
gress  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  any  of  the  states.  This  first  failed 
in  the  house  to  receive  the  requisite  two-thirds  vote,  but  there  was  a 
subsequent  re-consideration  and  the  resolution  was  adopted  by  a  vote 
of — ayes,  133;  noes,  65.  In  the  senate  the  proposition  received 
precisely  the  required  two-thirds,  the  vote  being  24  to  12.  The  pro 
posed  amendment  thus  submitted  to  the  states  was  in  these  words : 

"  ARTICLE  XIII.  No  amendment  shall  be  made  to  the  constitution 
which  will  authorize  or  give  to  congress  the  power  to  abolish  or  interfere, 
within  any  state,  with  the  domestic  institutions  thereof,  including  that  of  per 
sons  held  to  labor  or  service  by  the  laws  thereof." 

A  large  number  of  strong  anti-slavery  men,  both  in  the  Republi 
can  and  Democratic  parties,  some  of  them  afterward  illustrious  for  their 
services  to  the  country,  aided  Mr.  Corwin  in  carrying  the  resolution 
submitting  this  amendment  through  the  two  houses  of  congress. 
Before  many  states  could  act  upon  it,  the  evidences  of  the  fixed 
determination  of  the  slave  states  to  secede  had  so  increased  that  all 
efforts  at  conciliation  were  seen  to  be  vain.  Ohio  and  Maryland 
ratified  the  amendment.  Had  it  been  made  a  part  of  the  constitu 
tion  at  that  time,  it  would  not  have  averted  the  greatest  war  of  mod 
ern  times,  but  it  is  not  to  be  regretted  that  the  name  of  Corwin  is 
conspicuous  in  this  last  effort  to  save  the  union  without  civil  war. 


MINISTER  TO  MEXICO. 


On  March  12th,  1861,  President  Lincoln  sent  to  the  senate  the 
nomination  of  Thomas  Convin  as  minister  to  Mexico,  and  the  nomi 
nation  was  promptly  confirmed.  This  mission  was  at  this  time  one 
of  the  most  important  under  our  government.  One  month  before 
the  appointment  of  Convin,  the  government  of  the  Confederate 
States  of  America  had  been  established  and  the  boundary  which 
had  been  the  cause  of  the  war  between  the  United  States  and  Mex 
ico  was  the  boundary  of  the  new  confederacy.  It  was  the  earnest 
desire  of  the  administration  of  Lincoln  that  in  the  difficulties  grow 
ing  out  of  the  rebellion  friendly  relations  between  the  United  States 
and  Mexico  should  be  continued,  and  that  no  encouragement  to  the 
seceding  states  to  hold  out  in  their  rebellion  should  come  from  the 
Mexican  government.  The  slave  power  which  had  instigated  the 
rebellion  had  brought  about  the  war  against  Mexico  for  the  acquisi 
tion  of  territory  out  of  which  to  form  new  slave  states.  The  ap 
pointment  by  Lincoln  to  the  Mexican  mission  of  the  statesman  who 
had  in  the  senate  opposed  the  dismemberment  of  that  republic  was 
a  felicitous  one. 

Mr.  Corwin's  instructions  from  Secretary  Seward  were  dated  on 
the  6th  of  April,  and  about  the  middle  of  that  month,  for  the  first 
time,  he  left  his  country  in  the  service  of  his  government.  The 
diplomatic  representative  of  Mexico  at  Washington  requested  the 
governor  of  Vera  Cruz  to  provide  for  him  an  escort  to  the  Mexican 
capital  on  account  of  banditti  infesting  a  portion  of  the  road,  and  as 
a  compliment  to  the  representative  of  the  United  States  government. 
Mr.  Corwin  found  no  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  Mexican  authori 
ties  to  promote  internal  dissensions  in  the  United  States  or  to  extend 
sympathy  and  aid  to  the  Confederate  States.  On  the  29th  of  May, 
1861,  he  wrote  to  his  own  government: 

"  The  present  government  of  Mexico  is  well  disposed  toward  us  in  our 
present  difficulties,  but  for  obvious  reasons  will  be  unwilling  to  enter  into  any 

(67) 


68  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

engagement  which  might  produce  war  with  the  south  unless  protected  by  a 
promise  of  aid  from  the  United  States." 

Mexico  was  soon  in  a  condition  calling  for  the  sympathy  of  her 
sister  republic.  Spain,  England  and  France  united  in  pressing 
against  her  claims  for  losses  to  their  subjects  resident  within  her  bor 
ders.  The  allied  powers  occupied  Vera  Cruz  in  December,  1861. 
England  and  Spain  soon  withdrew  their  troops,  as  their  claims  were 
settled  by  negotiation,  but  the  war  was  continued  by  Louis  Napoleon 
who  desired  to  establish  a  monarchy  on  the  ruins  of  the  Mexican 
republic.  Mr.  Corwin  soon  negotiated  a  treaty  which,  among  other 
stipulations,  proposed  a  loan  from  the  United  States  to  Mexico,  by 
which  it  was  hoped  she  would  be  enabled  to  resist  the  interference 
of  France.  This  treaty  failed  of  ratification  in  the  United  States 
senate. 

During  most  of  the  time  Mr.  Corwin  was  in  Mexico,  his  posi 
tion  was  one  of  difficulty. .and  delicacy;  the  ..country  he  represented 
was  in  the  throes  of  a  great  civil  \var,  the  one  to  which  he  was  ac 
credited  invaded  by  the  armies  of  one  of  the  great  powers  of 
Europe;  but  his  eminence  for  talents,  experience  in  public  affairs, 
the  democratic  simplicity  of  his  manners  and  the  kindly  interest  he 
took  in  the  welfare  of  the  Mexican  people,  combined  with  i&e-  feet 
that  he  was  the  representative  of  the  greatest  of  republics  at  a  repub 
lican  court,  gave  him  much  influence  with  President  Juarez  and  the 
embassies  from  other  nations. 

Presuming,  perhaps,  too  largely  upon  his'  urbanity,  the  Prussian 
minister,  Baron  De  Wagner,  having  obtained  temporary  leave  of 
absence,  addressed  him  a  request,  stating  that  during  his  absence  he 
trusted  the  Prussian,  Spanish  and  Belgian  consular  authorities  would 
be  able  to  afford  due  protection  to  their  respective  countrymen,  yet 
he  took  the  liberty  of  recommending  them,  in  case  of  need,  to  the 
kind  and  more  effective  protection  of  the  United  States  legation, 
confident  as  he  was  that  Mr.  Corwin  would  be  pleased  to  grant  them 
as  well  as  the  French  residents  who  might  appeal  to  him  such  aid  as 
might  be  possible  under  such  critical  circumstances.  To  this  request 
Mr.  Corwin  replied: 

"  Were  such  request  addressed  to  the  cabinet  at  Washington  and  its 
object  approved,  and  proper  instructions  given  to  the  undersigned,  he  should 
then,  and  only  then,  deem  it  proper  for  him,  in  obedience  to  such  instruc 
tions,  to  discharge  to  the  best  of  his  ability  the  duties  they  might  impose. 
The  undersigned  has  not  at  this  time  and  place  the  means  of  searching  for 


MINISTER    TO    MEXICO.  69 

precedents,  but  his  memory  furnishes  him  with  no  instance  where  a  minister 
of  the  United  States,  under  circumstances  like  the  present,  assumed  to  ex 
tend  diplomatic  protection  to  foreign  citizens  resident  within  the  territories  of 
the  government  to  which  he  is  accredited,  without  express  instructions  to  do 
so  from  the  president  of  the  United  States.  In  regard  to  the  proposed  pro 
tection  of  the  subjects  of  his  imperial  majesty,  the  emperor  of  the  French, 
there  are  reasons  for  the  course  the  undersigned  has  adopted,  which  might 
not  apply  with  equal  force  to  the  other  nationalities  specified  in  your  excel 
lency's  note.  The  French  empire  and  Mexico  are  at  war.  Between  these 
two  belligerent  powers  the  government  of  the  United  States  occupies  a  purely 
neutral  position.  Should  the  government  of  the  United  States  assume  the 
right  and  duty  of  protecting  the  subjects  of  one  of  the  belligerent  powers 
against  the  supposed  wrongs  to  be  inflicted  upon  them  by  the  government  of 
the  other,  it  is  easy  to  foresee  that  cases  might  arise  'which  would  tend 
strongly  to  disturb  these  peaceful  relations  with  one  or  both  of  the  belliger 
ents,  which  it  is  the  object  of  perfect  neutrality  to  preserve  inviolate." 

After  this  declination  to  comply  with  his  proposition  the  Prus 
sian  minister  requested  Mr.  Corwin  to  inform  the  representatives 
of  other  American  republics  then  at  the  Mexican  capital  of  the 
"very  pressing  instances"  he  made  to  the  diplomatic  corps,  and  each 
of  its  members  in  particular,  to  lend  their  assistance  in  favoring  pro 
tection  to  foreigners  who  might  address  them  directly,  or  Mr.  Cor 
win  "as  their  dean;"  with  which  request  Mr.  Corwin  complied  by 
forwarding  to  each  of  the  representatives  referred  to,  a  copy  of 
Baron  De  Wagner's  note,  and  inviting  them  to  meet  the  members  of 
the  diplomatic  corps,  then  in  that  city,  at  his  rooms  to  take  into  con 
sideration  Mr.  Wagner's  request.  Sometime  afterward,  in  reply 
to  a  note  received  from  Senor  A.  de  la  Fuenta,  dated  National  Pal 
ace,  Mexico,  February  24,  1863,  Mr.  Corwin  wrote: 

"  I  declined  the  protection  of  those  subjects,  when  proposed  to  be 
clothed  with  that  power  by  Mr.  Wagner,  not,  however,  because  I  conceived 
my  assumption  of  such  powers  could  give  any  just  cause  of  complaint  to  the 
supreme  government  of  Mexico,  but  on  the  ground  that  in  the  present  rela 
tions  of  Mexico  with  European  powers,  and  also  with  the  government  of  the 
United  States,  I  deemed  it  proper  that  the  subject  should  be  first  submitted 
to  the  cabinet  at  Washington,  and  its  instructions  thereupon  forwarded  to 

me I  deem  it  due  to  that  candor  which  should  characterize  the 

intercourse  between  the  republics  of  Mexico  and  the  United  States  to  state 
to  your  excellency  the  course  I  deem  it  my  duty  to  pursue  on  this  subject 
until  specific  instructions  shall  be  received  by  me  from  my  government. 

"  If  the  action  of  the  supreme  government  of  Mexico  should  at  any 


70  LIFE    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

time  DC  exerted  upon  any  foreign  subject  or  citizen  to  such  an  extent  as  to 
place  his  life,  liberty  or  property  in  danger,  and  where  such  action  would, 
with  equal  propriety,  be  applied,  under  like  circumstances,  to  an  American 
citizen,  I  shall,  if  any  such  case  unhappily  arises,  deem  it  my  duty  to  offer  to 
the  supreme  government  such  expostulation  as  in  my  judgment  the  case  may 
seem  to  require.  This  I  shall  do  with  the  most  perfect  respect  for  the  just 
powers  of  the  supreme  government  of  Mexico,  and  with  a  well-founded  con 
fidence  in  its  upright  motives,  and  its  desire  to  do  justice  to  all  foreigners  with 
such  moderation  as  may  consist  with  self-respect  and  the  dignity  and  safety  of 
the  Mexican  republic.  In  adopting  this  course,  I  am  sure  your  excellency 
will  perceive  that  I  am  making  no  innovation  upon  the  modern  usage  of  civ 
ilized  nations,  nor  doing  anything  which  should  interrupt  the  friendly  relations 
which  my  government  so  earnestly  desires  with  the  Mexican  republic." 

The  approbation  by  his  government  of  the  rule  of  action  he 
had  adopted,  is  thus  expressed  in  a  note  addressed  to  him  by  the 
secretary  of  state,  Mr.  Seward,  April  18th,  1863: 

"Your  proceedings  with  relation  to  the  request  of  the  late  Prussian 
minister  at  Mexico,  that  you  would  assume  the  protection  of  subjects  of  the 
king  of  Prussia  and  of  other  European  powers  in  that  republic,  during  the 
suspension  of  the  several  European  legations  there,  are  approved  by  the  pres 
ident.  The  first  responsibility  of  a  minister  is  to  practice  fidelity  to  the  inter 
ests  of  the  state  whose  credentials  he  bears;  the  second  is  the  exercise  of 
perfect  good  faith,  respect  and  courtesy  to  the  government  of  the  country  to 
which  he  is  accredited.  A  minister  is  not  only  at  liberty,  but  he  is  morally 
bound  to  render  all  the  good  offices  he  can  to  other  powers  and  their  subjects 
consistently  with  the  discharge  of  those  principal  responsibilities  I  have 
described.  But  it  belongs  to  the  state  where  the  minister  resides  to  decide, 
in  every  case,  in  what  manner  and  in  what  degree  such  good  offices  shall  be 
rendered,  and,  indeed,  whether  they  shall  be  tolerated  at  all.  No  abridg 
ment  of  this  sovereign  right  can  be  insisted  upon,  unless,  indeed,  the  govern 
ment  of  that  state  manifestly  refuses  to  acknowledge  or  give  effect  to  some  of 
the  entirely  admitted  principles  of  morality  recognized  as  constituting  the  basis 
of  the  laws  of  nature  and  the  law  of  nations.  Not  only  has  this  government 
no  such  complaint  to  make  against  Mexico,  but,  on  the  contrary,  in  all  its 
intercourse  with  that  republic  it  has  been  impressed  with  the  evidences  of  a 
high  degree  of  virtue  and  enlightenment.  That  government  deservedly 
enjoys  not  only  the  respect  but  the  good  wishes,  and,  so  far  as  natural  affec 
tions  are  allowable,  the  sympathy  of  the  United  States  in  its  present  unhappy 
embarrassments  with  foreign  powers.  The  president  therefore  remits  you  for 
your  government  in  regard  to  the  questions  presented,  to  the  rules  you  have 
prescribed  to  yourself,  so  long  as  they  shall  be  satisfactory  to  the  government 
of  Mexico." 


MINISTER   TO    MEXICO.  71 

In  a  dispatch  dated  June  26th,  1863,  Mr.  Corwin  informed  his 
government  that  the  French  army  had  entered  and  occupied  the 
Mexican  capital,  and  the  government  to  which  he  had  been  accred 
ited  had  been  compelled  to  retire  to  San  Luis  Potosi,  and  that  he 
had  been  invited  by  Juarez  to  leave  Mexico  and  repair  to  that  place, 
but  as  the  country  was  divided  between  two  hostile  governments  he 
had  determined  to  decline  leaving  the  ancient  capital.  Mr.  Seward 
informed  Mr.  Corwin  that  his  course  was  approved  by  the  president, 
and  that  the  most  convenient  and  favorable  position  of  the  Ameri 
can  legation  for  the  protection  of  American  interests  must  depend 
upon  the  contingencies  of  the  war.  He  was  informed,  however, 
that  he  was  not  expected  under  the  existing  circumstances  to  address 
the  new  government  at  the  capital. 

The  condition  of  the  Mexican  republic  made  Mr.  Corwin's  posi 
tion  an  irksome  and  unhappy  one.  He  longed  to  be  at  home  in  his 
own  country,  and  jisjhe  capital  to  which  he  had  been  sent  as  a  min 
ister  of  the  United  States  was  now  under  the  control  of  a  new  and 
provisional  government  with  which  he  could  have  no  communication, 
he  applied  to  the  president  for  a  leave  of  absence  in  order  to  visit 
his  home.  In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Corwin,  dated  August  8th,  1863,  Mr. 
Seward  wrote : 

' '  The  president  fully  appreciates  the  great  and  unwearied  labors  you 
have  performed  in  your  mission,  and  the  circumstances  which  render  a  tem 
porary  relief  from  them  desirable  on  your  part.  He  has  thought  that  proba 
bly  the  present  juncture,  when  things  in  regard  to  the  future  of  Mexico  are 
depending  on  dispositions  and  events  there,  with  which  a  minister  of  a  for 
eign  and  friendly  power  cannot  lawfully  interfere,  may,  perhaps,  be  the  most 
suitable  one  for  the  allowance  of  the  indulgence  you  have  asked.  But  he 
desires  to  leave  this  point  to  your  own  better-informed  discretion.  You  will, 
therefore,  have  leave  of  absence,  to  begin  at  such  time  as  you  may  think 
proper  after  this  communication  reaches  you,  and  may  return  to  the  United 
States  to  confer  with  this  department,  and  to  await  the  further  directions  of 
the  president." 

Mr.  Corwin  returned  to  the  United  States  early  in  the  year 
1864  and  not  long  after  resigned  his  position  as  minister.  His  son, 
William  Henry  Corwin,  remained  in  Mexico  charge  d'affaires  until 
1866. 


THE  LAST  OF  EARTH. 


The  return  of  Corwin  to  the  United  States  and  his  resignation 
soon  after  of  the  office  of  minister  to  Mexico  closed  his  public  life, 
and  his  earthly  career  terminated  suddenly  in  the  following  year. 
Though  he  held  no  official  station  his  last  days  were  not  passed  in 
retirement.  He  was  still  under  the  necessity  of  work  and  he  opened 
a  law-office  in  Washington.  No  city  in  the  United  States  offered  the 
lawyer  of  ability  a  more  lucrative  practice  than  did  the  national  capi 
tal  at  the  close  of  the  civil  war,  and  Mr.  Corwin's  fame  and  abilities 
would  doubtless  have  made  the  last  years  of  his  professional  career 
eminently  successful  had  he  not  been  suddenly  cut  down  before  age 
had  impaired  his  vigorous  and  brilliant  powers.  He  was  stricken 
with  paralysis  and  died  at  Washington,  December  18th,  1865. 

He  had  been  invited  to  a  large  party  of  Ohio  people  at  the  res 
idence  of  the  Ohio  military  agent.  The  assemblage  was  a  notable 
one,  embracing  several  persons  of  national  distinction  and  two  young 
members  of  the  Ohio  delegation  in  congress  who  were  afterwards 
elected  to  the  presidency.  The—rooms  were  crowded  and  Corwin 
was  late  in  entering.  When  he  came  in  there  was  heard  the  excla 
mation  of  joy,  "There  is  Tom  Corwin,"  and  soon  men  gathered 
around  him  to  hear  him  talk.  The  chairs  had  been  removed  and  the 
company  was  compelled  to  stand.  Corwin  had  not  been  well  and 
General  Hayes,  knowing  this,  had  taken  possession  of  the  only  seat 
in  the  room  to  reserve  it  for  him.  When  he  was  offered  the  seat  he 
declined  it,  as  there  were  older  men  present,  but  Hayes,  getting  in 
front  of  him,  gently  forced  him  into  it.  Soon  he  began  to  talk  and 
a  company  gathered  around  him  in  a  compact  mass.  Some  got 
down  on  their  knees  near  him  in  order  to  let  others  see  over  their 
heads ;  others  stood  and  peered  over  the  shoulders  of  those  in  front 
of  them.  The,. wonderful  talker  seemed  to  be  in  his  happiest  vein. 
When  the  company  was  invited  to  the  refreshment  room,  Corwin 
was  seated  on  a  sofa.  As  many  as  could  hear  him  continued  to 

listen  and  to  laugh  and  sometimes  to  shout  in  boisterous  merriment. 

(72) 


THE    LAST    OF    EARTH.  73 

But  the  great  humorist  arose  from  his  seat,  stretched  forth  both 
hands  as  if  to  illustrate  a  point  in  an  anecdote,  gasped  and  fell  for 
ward.  Garfield  caught  him  in  his  arms  and  he  was  carried  into  an 
adjoining  room.  His  whole  right  side  was  paralyzed.  He  spoke 
pnce  or  twice,  but  soon  became  unconscious  and  thus  lingered  for 
two  days,  when  he  breathed  his  last. 

The  accounts  of  the  last  conscious  moments  of  Corwin,  as  given 
by  those  present,  differ  somewhat  in  some  of  the  details.  Ex-Presi 
dent  Hayes,  a  short  time  before  his  death,  gave  a  newspaper  corres 
pondent  his  recollection  of  the  thrilling  scene:  "When  Corwin  was 
in  the  midst  of  his  jesting,  Wade,  who  had  been  listening  intently, 
suddenly  asked:  '  They  say,  Corwin,  those  Mexicans  want  to  be  an 
nexed  to  the  United  States ;  what  do  you  think  of  that  ?'  Corwin's 
face  changed  from  gay  to  grave,  his  eyes  became  serious,  and  every 
one  bent  forward  to  hear  what  he  might  say.  He  raised  his  hand 
and  attempted  to  speak.  His  lips  moved,  but  no  words  came.  His 
hand  still  moved  in  gesture.  Then  it  was  seen  that  something  was 
the  matter  and  we  moved  back  to  give  him  air.  He  raised  himself 
suddenly  from  his  seat,  reached  forward  his  hands  and  fell  into  the 
arms  of  his  friends.  We  carried  him  into  the  next  room  and  laid  him 
upon  a  bed,  and  he  never  spoke  again."  General  Garfield  in  1878, 
by  request,  wrote  his  recollection:  "A  large  party  of  Ohio  people 
had  assembled  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Wetmore,  the  military  agent  of 
Ohio,  and  Corwin  was  in  his  happiest  vein  of  anecdote.  He  occu 
pied  a  sofa,  with  a  friend  seated  on  each  hand  and  as  many  seated  in 
front  of  him  as  could  get  within  reach.  They  were  listening  to  one 
of  his  inimitable  stories,  in  the  course  of  which  he  arose  to  illustrate 
some  point  of  the  anecdote,  and  while  making  a  gesture  with  both 
hands  was  stricken  with  paralysis  and  fell  forward.  I  caught  him  in 
my  arms,  and  Whitelaw  Reid,  who  stood  beside  me,  aided  in  carry 
ing  him  to  a  bed  in  an  adjoining  room.  He  spoke  once  or  twice  on 
the  way  and  as  we  laid  him  down,  but  never  spoke  again." 

The  sudden  death  of  Corwin  touched  the  heart  of  the  nation. 
The  people  everywhere  felt  that  a  great  man,  a  true  patriot  and  a 
wonderful  genius  had  departed.  A  meeting  was  held  in  the  recep 
tion  room  of  the  senate  chamber,  which  was  attended  by  senators, 
representatives  and  distinguished  citizens  then  at  the  capital,  to  tes 
tify  their  deep  sorrow  at  his  death.  Chief  Justice  Chase  presided. 
The  customary  expressions  of  sorrow  on  such  occasions  were 
adopted.  Representatives  R.  B.  Hayes,  Benjamin  Eggleston, 


74  LIFE  OF  THOMAS  CORWIN. 

Samuel  Shellabarger,  James  A.  Garfield  and  Major  Swain  were 
appointed  a  committee  to  accompany  his  remains  to  Ohio. 

At  this  meeting  eloquent  and  affectionate  tributes  to  his  genius 
and  worth  were  uttered  by  the  chief  justice,  Representative  Robert 
C.  Schenck,  Senators  Garrett  Davis,  Reverdy  Johnson  and  John 
Sherman  and  the  secretary  of  state,  William  H.  Seward.  Justice 
Chase  remarked,  on  taking  the  chair,  that  the  name  of  Thomas  Cor- 

win  "is  itself  a  eulogy Great  were  his  titles  to  honor  won 

at  the  bar,  in  legislative  halls  and  in  executive  councils ;  but  at  this 
moment  they  seem  insignificant  in  comparison  with  the  admiration, 
love  and  veneration  which  gathered  around  him  as  a  man.  Let 
others  call  him  senator,  secretary,  minister;  let  us  call  him  MAN,  our 
friend." 

General  Schenck,  who  had  studied  law  under  Corwin  and  had 
known  him  long  and  intimately,  said:  "I  am  still  trying  to  realize 
him  dead,  and  my  heart  and  mind  are  heavy  and  unsettled  in  the 
attempt  to  accept  that  fact.  You,  Mr.  Chief  Justice,  have  spoken 
feelingly,  as  well  as  fittingly,  of  the  inexpressible  loss  we  have  sus 
tained,  of  the  great  loss  the  country  has  sustained.  I  can  add  noth 
ing  now  to  what  you  have  recalled  of  the  great  character  and  abili 
ties  of  Mr.  Corwin  and  of  his  brilliant  career  as  a  statesman  and  a 
patriot.  We  all  stand  here  with  hearts  full  and  oppressed  with  the 
thought  that — 

'  Never  any  more 

Shall  man  look  on  him ;  never  any  more, 
In  hall  or  senate,  shall  his  eloquent  voice 
Give  hope  to  a  sick  nation.' 

But,  sir,  my  soul  is  fuller  still  of  other  remembrances.  I  think  of 
the  large  heart  that  has  been  stilled  in  death,  rather  than  of  the 
great  brain  that  has  ceased  its  busy  working.  His  genius,  his 
humor,  his  eloquence,  his  extraordinary  and  varied  powers  and  his 
eminent  success  in  so  many  lines  of  public  service,  are  at  this 
moment  but  secondary  in  my  mind  to  my  recollection  of  his  admira 
ble  qualities  as  a  man." 

Senator  Davis  said:  "  In  his  moral  structure  Mr.  Corwin  was 
truly  great  and  noble.  Gentle,  benevolent,  genial,  truthful,  just  and 
conscientious,  he  was  a  patriot  without  sectionalism,  a  friend  of  uni 
versal  liberty  and  a  philanthropist  without  fanaticism." 

Secretary  Seward  delivered  a  beautiful  and  impressive  address. 
He  said  that  the  longer  he  lived  the  more  profoundly  he  felt  the 


THE    LAST    OF    EARTH.  75 

utter  valuelessness  of  oratory  and  genius  and  all  accomplishments, 
unless  they  were  devoted  to  good  and  great  ends.  It  was  not  what 
a  man  said  or  how  he  said  it,  but  what  he  had  done.  Had  he 
labored  for  his  country?  Had  he  worked  for  God  and  humanity? 
Judging  Mr.  Corwin  by  this  standard,  said  Mr.  Seward,  he  had  noth 
ing  to  wish  for ;  all  his  powers  were  consecrated  to  his  country  and 
to  humanity. 

The  next  day,  after  appropriate  ceremonies,  in  which  the 
Masonic  fraternity  participated,  the  body  was  placed  on  a  train  and 
taken  to  his  home  in  Ohio  for  interment.  The  burial  was  in  the 
Lebanon  cemetery  and  was  attended  by  a  large  concourse,  embrac- : 
ing  many  distinguished  men  of  the  state,  but  the  large  majority  was 
composed  of  old  citizens  of  the  town  and  county  in  which  the 
departed  statesman  had  so  long  lived,  many  of  whom  had  known, 
loved  and  admired  him  for  half  a  century. 

The  following  graphic  description  of  the  extraordinary  scene  at 
the  death  of  Corwin  was  first  published  in  the  Ohio  State  Journal  as 
an  anonymous  letter.  <  It  was  written  by  Samuel  Shellabarger,  then 
a  representative  in  congress: 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  December  19,  1865. 

DEAR  SIR  : — It  has  never  been  deemed  an  invasion  of  the  sanctuary  of 
private  life  to  preserve  for  the  world  and  history  the  last  utterance  and  acts 
of  the  men  of  history.  That  license  which  admits  the  treasuring  up  of  the 
'  last  things  "  of  great  and  historic  lives  induces  me  to  write  down  what  I  do 
here. 

It  was  never  my  lot  before  to  be  thrilled  by  seeing  brought  together  in 
startling  proximity  life  and  death,  mirth  and  mourning,  fame  and  frailty,  as  I 
saw  them  brought  together  in  the  circumstances  attending  the  last  conscious 
moments  of  Thomas  Corwin.  How  strange  it  seems  to  me  now!  At  a 
collection  of  men  of  Ohio,  in  which  were  Chase,  and  Wade,  and  Sherman, 
and  Schenck,  and  Bingham,  and  Swayne,  and  fifty  others  of  the  public  men 
of  the  state,  Governor  Corwin  was  present.  Upon  his  entering  the  room 
he,  of  course,  became,  what  he  for  forty  years  has  been  everywhere,  where 
his  presence  was,  the  center  of  interest  and  admiration.  In  ten  minutes 
after  he  entered  the  room  I  saw  from  a  distance  ( for  I  did  not  soon  go  to 
him )  men  collected  and  compacted  around  him  in  eager,  excited,  and,  in 
some  cases,  ridiculous  attitudes.  Chief  justice  and  associate  justices  of  the 
supreme  court  of  the  United  States,  members  of  the  cabinet,  major-generals 
of  the  armies  of  the  United  States,  senators  in  congress  and  members  of  the 
house  of  representatives  were  in  the  circle.  Some  were  seated  by  him; 
some  stood  erect  about  his  chair ;  some  leaned  and  pressed  eagerly  forward 


76  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

between  the  more  inner  circles  of  listeners,  and  pushed  their  ears  forward  to 
hear  the  words  and  whispers  which  came  from  the  center  of  the  circle. 
Some  sat,  some  stood,  some  kneeled,  and  all  leaned  forward  to  listen 

I  watched  occasionally  the  effect,  upon  this  little  company  of  men,  of 
what  was  drawing  them  to  that  center.  The  strange  magician  had  taken  up 
once  more,  and  the  last  time,  his  wand  to  try  its  spell  upon  a  little  company 
of  its  subjects.  It  was  the  same  one  with  which  so  often  before,  in  the  mere 
wantonness  and  sport  of  his  power,  he  had  toyed  and  played  with  the  storms 
of  human  passions  which  it  conjured  up,  controlled  and  allayed  at  will. 

His  youth,  with  its  inimitable  charms  and  graces,  seemed  for  a  moment 
to  have  come  to  him  again.  There  were  once  more  the  flow  of  humor,  the 
sparkle  of  merriment,  the  glow  of  enthusiasm,  the  flash  of  wit  and  the 
charms  of  anecdote  and  illustration ;  and  there  the  wondrous  play  of  feature 
which  made  him  CORWIN.  Men  came  repeatedly  out  from  his  presence  at 
that  seat  that  night,  exclaiming,  ' '  There  is  but  one  Corwin ! "  For  a 
moment  men,  who,  a  thousand  times  before,  had  bowed  before  the  spell  of 
genius,  or  had  been  swept  off  by  its  irresistible  force,  and  then  when  the 
spell  was  gone,  wondered  at  their  frailty,  here  again  became  its  victims. 

When  at  last  the  press  about  him  lessened,  I  sat  down  by  his  side. 
What  he  happened  first  to  say  to  me  furnished  one  of  those  strange  coinci 
dences  which  help  to  invest  our  lives  with  a  tinge  of  the  mysterious  and 
awful,  and  which  makes  us  superstitious.  One  of  his  first  utterances  to  me 
was  a  startling  description  of  what  Tom  Corwin  was  to  be  in  twenty-five  min 
utes  after  its  utterance.  It  was  this:  He  said,  "You  are  more  bald  than 
when  I  saw  you  last,  the  day  before  I  sailed  for  Mexico."  I  said,  "Yes." 
He  said,  with  the  semi-solemn,  semi-comical  face  which  has  become  histori 
cal,  "  But  then,  Julius  Caesar  was  bald."  I  said,  "  But  Caesar  had  fits." 
Then  he  assumed  a  more  serious  manner,  and  said:  "Twenty  years  ago  I 
saw  a  man  fall  in  apparently  unconscious  paralysis,  when  in  the  midst  of 
excited  discourse.  He  was  carried  out  by  his  friends  in  this  condition  and 
his  first  act  of  consciousness  was  to  utter  the  words  you  have  just  said:  'Caesar 
had  fits.' " 

In  twenty-five  minutes  after  I  assisted  in  carrying  Corwin  out  in  the 
precise  condition  he  had  so  strangely  described.  He  then  went  into  a  more 
general  conversation  with  those  about  him ;  asked  after  old  friends  of  Ohio ; 
alluded  to  his  late  law  partner,  Judge  Johnston,  of  Cincinnati,  in  terms  of 
great  kindness  and  as  one  of  the  most  powerful  advocates  and  best  intellects 
he  ever  knew  ....  He  told  me  how  hard  he  worked.  How  hard  it  was 
to  go  up  the  long  stairway  of  the  treasury  building.  How  the  stories  of  his 
making  large  fees  here  were  exaggerations.  How  he  had  lost  a  large  fee 
due  him  in  Mississippi. 

Then  he  was  invited  to  repair  to  the  refreshment  room.  He  arose  and 
asked  me  to  accompany  him,  which  I  did;  Senator  Wade  joining  us  at  the 


THE    LAST    OF    EARTH.  77 

foot  of  the  stairs.  I  urged  him  to  be  seated  on  a  sofa  at  the  table,  which  he 
expressed  reluctance  in  taking,  owing  to  the  presence  of  ladies  standing.  On 
this  sofa  his  last  words  were  uttered  in  a  few  moments  after.  The  scene  I 
have  alluded  to  as  occurring  below,  was  here  speedily  repeated.  Eager 
men  again  pressed  about  him  and  leaned  forward,  and  held  their  breath  to 
catch  his  last  utterance.  Once  or  twice  they  shouted  with  laughter  and 
clapped  their  hands  in  boisterous  merriment ;  and  every  eye  and  ear  in  the 
assemblage  was  directed  to  the  seat  where  Tom  Corwin  was  playing  with 
skilled  fingers  upon  that  mystic  harp  whose  cords  are  human  passion,  sym 
pathy  and  emotion,  with  all  the  wizard  skill  and  power  which  was  of  old. 
In  a  moment  afterwards  his  voice  suddenly  sank  to  whispers,  and  then  he 
raised  forward  his  hands,  asked  for  fresh  air  and  fell  into  the  arms  of  sur 
rounding  friends,  and  I  helped  carry  him,  speechless,  from  the  chamber 
where  his  last  auditory  had  just  hung  in  love  and  admiration  upon  his  lips, 
and  stooped  forward  to  get  his  last  whispers.  And  we  carried  him  into  the 
death  chamber  whence  a  soul,  more  eloquent  than  Patrick  Henry's,  more 
beautiful  than  Sheridan's,  more  graceful  than  Cicero's,  went  back  to  God  who 
made  it. 

When  we  laid  him  down  he  soon  said  to  us,  by  a  significant  act,  what 
he  could  not  say  by  speech,  "one  side  of  me  is  dead."  This  he  did  by 
raising  up  one  arm,  grasping  tightly  his  hand,  and  shaking  his  clenched  fist. 
This  he  did  twice,  looking,  at  the  same  time  earnestly  and  rather  wildly  into 
the  face  of  immediate  bystanders.  When  he  did  this  with  his  left  hand  his 
right  one  was  lying  dead  at  his  side  This  act  was  instantly  read  by  all  as 
saying  to  us,  "  one  side  is  powerless,  but  the  other  is  not."  This  was  the 
last  communication  to  his  fellow  man  ever  made  by  him,  unless  subsequent 
grasps  of  recognition  may  have  indicated  to  a  few  that  he  knew  them. 

And  there  at  night  I  parted  with  that  stricken  man !  He,  who  had 
touched  with  the  sceptre  of  his  imperial  and  God-like  intellect  States,  Nations, 
People,  Courts  and  Senators,  and  made  them  all  bow  to  the  majesty  of  its 
power,  was  now  touched — in  his  turn — touched  by  the  sceptre  of  his  Lord, 
and  instantly  bowed  his  head,  and  laid  himself  submissively  down  and  died. 

I,  a  sojourner  here  at  the  National  Capital  for  a  few  days,  and  who  hap 
pened  to  witness  "The  Last  of  Earth"  to  Corwin,  wrote  down  this.  Let  it 
be  preserved  or  thrown  away  as  may  be  fit ;  but  whether  preserved  or  thrown 
away — 

" our  hearts,  though  young  and  brave, 

Still  like  muffled  drums  are  beating 
Funeral  marches  to  the  grave." 


HIS  MOST  ELOQUENT  SPEECH. 


The  Mexican  war  speech  in  the  senate  has  been  often  pro 
nounced  Corwin's  greatest  oratorical  effort,  but  tradition  and  contem 
porary  written  accounts  concur  in  representing  another  of  his 
speeches,  never  reported  and  so  lost,  as  excelling  it.  This  was  a 
defense  of  his  course  in  reference  to  the  Mexican  war  delivered  at 
his  home ;  and  there  is  evidence  that  it  was  the  most  truly  eloquent, 
most  magnificent  and  overpowering  effort  of  his  life,  and  one  which 
produced  an  effect  on  his  hearers  probably  never  equalled  in  our 
political  oratory. 

The  two  speeches  on  the  Mexican  war  in  1847,  the  one  in  the 
senate,  the  other  at  his  home,  mark  the  zenith  of  his  parliamentary 
and  popular  eloquence.  The  first,  he  certainly  never  excelled  or 
equalled  in  congress;  the  second,  it  is  easy  to  believe  from  the 
reported  effect  on  his  audience,  he  never  excelled  or  equalled  in  a 
popular  address.  As  he  was  a  greater  orator  before  the  people  than 
in  the  senate,  we  can  concur  in  the  verdict  of  those  who  heard  his 
Lebanon ,  speech  that  it  was  the  greatest  of  his  life,  if  not  the  great 
est  piece  of  popular  eloquence  of  an  American  orator.  He  was  fif 
ty-three  years  of  age,  in  the  ripe  prime  of  his  manhood  and  the  full 
maturity  of  his  intellect.  He  had  the  intensity  of  conviction  and 
the  courage  to  speak  which  together  make  eloquence  one  of  the 
great  moral  forces  of  the  world.  The  time,  the  place,  the  subject 
and  the  audience  were  all  such  as  to  bring  out  the  highest  powers  of 
the  orator. 

It  was  six  months  after  his  denunciation  of  the  war  of  conquest 
and  his  vote  against  war  supplies.  He  spoke  in  his  own  defense  and 
in  defense  of  truths  and  principles  which  he  held  dearer  than  his  life. 
He  was  at  his  own  home ;  in  the  court-house  where  his  voice  had 
been  so  often  heard ;  surrounded  by  his  friends  and  neighbors  who 
had  known  him  from  boyhood.  He  was  a  senator,  denounced  by 

truckling  politicians  and  servient  newspapers  all  over  the  land  as  a 

(78) 


HIS  MOST  ELOQUENT  SPEECH.  79 

traitor  to  his  country.  He  did  not  speak  as  a  politician  explaining, 
excusing  and  extenuating  what  he  had  said  and  done;  he  reiterated 
and  reaffirmed  the  doctrines  and  declarations  of  his  speech  in  the 
senate  and  announced  his  fixed  determination  to  abide  by  them. 

The  war  was  not  yet  over.  It  was  popular  in  the  south  and 
west;  our  armies  had  been  successful,  and  Scott  was  even  then  mak 
ing  his  triumphant  march  to  the  Mexican  capital.  The  Whigs  of 
Ohio  did  not  boldly  support  Corwin.  Would  his  neighbors  and 
friends  at  his  own  home  desert  him  ?  It  was  not  a  time  for  the  exer 
cise  of  powers  of  wit  and  mirth-making.  The  speech  was  solemn, 
serious,  pathetic, — one  continuous  torrent  of  invective,  righteous 
indignation  and  patriotic  appeal;  and  it  is  not  hard  to  believe  the  tra 
dition  that  old  men  who  had  employed  the  orator  when  a  young 
lawyer,  who  had  voted  for  him  again  and  again,  and  who  had  seen 
with  increasing  admiration  the  growth  of  his  fame,  stood  around  him 
with  streaming  eyes,  and  when  it  was  concluded  pronounced  the 
speech  the  greatest  they  ever  heard. 

No  effort  to  reproduce  the  words  of  the  speaker  was  ever  made, 
but  full  reports  of  the  meeting  were  given  in  the  press,  and  intelli 
gent  men  wrote  and  published  their  impressions  of  this  wonderful 
triumph  of  oratory,  and  described  the  effect  it  produced  upon  the 
hearers.  It  was  on  Saturday,  August  28th,  1847.  A  Whig  meet 
ing  had  been  announced  with  Corwin,  a  senator,  and  Robert  C. 
Schenck,  a  representative  in  congress,  as  the  speakers.  There  was 
no  exciting  election  approaching  and  the  meeting  was  not  so  large 
but  that  it  could  be  held  in  the  court-house.  Most  of  the  audience 
were  the  personal  friends  of  Corwin,  gathered  from  the  farms  and 
towns  of  his  own  county,  but  some  were  from  neighboring  counties. 
Some  distinguished  men  were  present.  Ex-Governor  Morrow  came 
up  from  his  farm  and  mill  and  presided.  William  Bebb,  then  gover 
nor  of  the  state,  was  one  of  the  vice-presidents.  The  list  of  the 
officers  of  the  meeting  is  worthy  of  preservation : 

President — Ex-Governor  Jeremiah  Morrow,  of  Warren. 

Vice-Presidents — Governor  Bebb,  Hon.  John  Woods  and  John  M. 
Millikin,  of  Butler;  John  N.  C.  Schenck,  of  Warren,  and  John  M.  Galla 
gher,  of  Clark. 

Secretaries — W.  H.  P.  Denny,  of  Warren,  and  William  C.  Howells, 
of  Butler.' 

Committee  on  Resolutions — Lewis  D.  Campbell,  of  Butler;  Hon. 
David  Fisher,  of  Clinton;  Thomas  B.  Stevenson,  of  Cincinnati;  William 


80  LIFE    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN 

Crosley,  of  Montgomery;  and  A.  H.  Dunlevy,  J.  J.  Janney,  Emmor  Bailey, 
Col.  John  Hopkins  and  Gideon  D'Hart,  of  Warren. 

There  was  a  meeting  in  the  forenoon  at  which  a  long  series  of 
resolutions  was  adopted,  one  of  which  warmly  endorsed  Corwin's 
course  in  the  senate,  and  especially  commended  him  for  opposing 
the  Mexican  war.  Speeches  were  made  by  Campbell  and  Stevenson. 
In  the  afternoon  the  two  orators  of  the  day  were  heard.  Schenck 
spoke  first,  occupying  an  hour  and  a  half.  He  had  then  served  four 
years  in  congress  and  had  already  exhibited  something  of  that 
remarkable  ability  as  a  speaker  which  led  Blaine  to  write  of  him, 
long  afterward,  that  no  man  in  congress  during  his  generation  rivaled 
his  marvelous  power  in  the  five  minutes'  discussion  in  the  committee 
of  the  whole.  Corwin  spoke  next.  In  reference  to  his  speech,  we 
quote  first  from  the  report  of  the  meeting  in  the  Lebanon  Star, 
probably  written  by  Denny,  the  editor: 

"  Now  what  shall  we  say  of  the  speech  of  our  fellow-citizen,  Thomas 
Corwin?  We  have  no  disposition  to  indulge  in  fulsome  flattery;  that  is 
unnecessary,  but  we  must  be  permitted  to  record  the  unanimous  sentiment  of 
all  who  heard  it  that  it  was  the  best  speech  Mr.  Corwin  ever  made.  And 
that,  in  our  estimation,  is  the  highest  praise  which  can  be  bestowed  on  the 
effort.  Its  delivery  occupied  two  hours  and  three  quarters,  and  though  the 
day  was  warm  and  the  audience  for  the  most  part  unseated,  not  a  sign  or 
restlessness  was  exhibited.  The  people,  Whigs  and  Democrats,  were  spell 
bound,  and  we  believe  that  if  the  speech  had  lasted  three  hours  longer  it 
would  have  been  listened  to  with  unabated  interest.  As  a  specimen  of  elo 
quence  and  argument  we  doubt  if  it  has  ever  been  surpassed.  It  was- 
directed  to  the  judgment  as  well  as  the  passions  ....  The  great  responsi 
bility  of  the  citizen  in  exercising  the  right  of  suffrage  was  dwelt  on  with 
remarkable  force.  Voting  right,  conscientiously  and  intelligently,  he 
regarded  as  the  only  safeguard  of  the  republic.  The  annexation  of  Texas, 
the  war  and  all  the  evils  resulting  from  it,  were  legitimately  chargeable  to  the 
people,  who  might  by  the  election  of  Mr.  Clay,  have  avoided  them,  and 
thus  have  preserved  the  peace,  prosperity  and  honor  of  the  country.  Mr. 
Corwin  reaffirmed  and  reiterated  in  the  strongest  language  the  doctrines  and 
the  policy  embraced  in  his  memorable  speech  last  winter.  They  were  right; 
and  he  intended  hereafter  to  enforce  them,  not  only  as  a  public  man  but  as  a. 
private  citizen." 

Thomas  B.  Stevenson,  a  Kentuckian  then  editing  the  Cincinnati 
Atlas,  wrote  for  his  paper : 

"  Mr.  Schenck  delivered  a  powerful  discourse  on  the  origin  and  objects 
of  the  war,  as  well  as  the  means  of  terminating  it  honorably,  and  embracing 


HIS    MOST    ELOQUENT    SPEECH.  81 

besides  a  masterly,  manly  and  conclusive  defense  of  himself  for  his  own 
course  in  congress  on  that  subject.  He  was  listened  to  with  deep  attention 
and  frequently  responded  to  from  the  audience  by  expressive  bursts  of  appro 
bation  as  period  after  period  of  indignant  attack  or  triumphant  self-defense 
rolled  eloquently  from  his  tongue. 

"  Mr.  Corwin  followed.  We  had  never  heard  mm  before.  We  have 
heard  some  good  speaking  in  our  time,  having  grown  up  among  a  people 
where  oratory  seems  to  be  '  manor  born/  but  we  must  say  ( for  sober  convic 
tion  extorts  it)  that  Mr.  Corwin's  speech  at  Lebanon  last  Saturday  was  the 
noblest,  whether  considered  with  reference  to  its  matter  or  manner,  or  both, 
that  we  ever  heard.  It  was  directed  to  a  defense  of  his  vote  against  war 
supplies ;  to  the  maintenance  of  the  fundamental  principle  of  free  govern 
ment  that  the  representatives  of  the  people  must  judge  of  the  propriety  of 
objects  for  the  attainment  of  which  they  are  called  to  furnish  means — a  prin 
ciple  for  which  he  solemnly  declared  he  was  ready  to  lay  down  his  life  as  did 
our  forefathers  of  the  revolution ;  and  to  the  consideration  of  the  practical 
means  of  preserving  the  union  from  overthrow  threatened  by  the  acquisition 
of  new  territory  in  the  prosecution  of  the  Mexican  war.  On  this  last  point 
he  concurred  with  Mr.  Schenck  and  the  resolutions  of  the  meeting,  that  no 
safe  plan  of  redemption  remained  but  that  of  refusing  to  take  any  portion  of 
Mexican  territory.  On  the  blessings  of  the  union  and  on  the  means  of  its 
preservation,  his  eloquence  seemed  superhuman.  Never  before  was  assem 
bled  an  audience  so  solemn,  so  rapt,  so  deeply  moved;  and  on  the  cheeks  of 
the  old,  the  middle-aged  and  the  young  tears  rolled  down  as  the  eloquent 
and  patriotic  truths  of  the  noble  orator  of  the  people  fell  from  lips  that 
seemed  almost  inspired. 

"  But  we  feel  how  vain  and  presumptuous  the  attempt  to  describe  such 
a  speech.  Some  idea  of  its  eloquence  and  power  and  effect  may  be  inferred, 
though  not  realized,  by  the  fact  that  every  one  who  heard  it  declared  it  the 
ablest  speech  the  orator  ever  delivered ;  and  to  say  that  Mr.  Corwin  surpassed 
himself  is  the  highest  eulogium  that  can  be  pronounced  upon  this  effort.  It 
certainly  was  superior  in  ability  to  his  great  speech  in  the  senate ;  and  it 
would  be  worth  more  to  this  country  than  the  expenses  of  the  Mexican  war, 
could  it  be  printed  verbatim  and  given  to  every  man,  woman  and  child  in  the 
land.  It  should  be  put  into  the  hands  of  school  boys  for  all  time  to  come." 

A.  P.  Russell,  in  his  sketch  of  Corwin,  says  of  this  speech : 

"There  was  not  a  humorous  word  in  it;  it  was  grave,  sober,  serious, 
tragic.  The  struggles  of  the  orator,  at  times,  to  express  himself  were  pain 
ful  to  witness.  The  great  veins  and  muscles  in  his  neck  enlarged;  his  face 
was  distorted ;  his  arms  wildly  reached  and  his  hands  desperately  clutched, 
clutched  in  paroxysms  of  unutterable  emotion.  Men  left  their  seats,  and 
gathered  close  around  him,  standing  through  most  of  the  speech ;  and  many 
7 


82  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

of  them  unconsciously  repeated  with  their  lips,  almost  audibly  every  word 
that  he  uttered — the  tears  streaming  over  their  faces.  Every  man  in  the 
audience  was  his  personal  friend.  The  speech  was  a  long  one,  lasting  two 

or  three  hours The  audience  dissolved  of  itself,  swarming  over  the 

streets  and  side-walks,  nearly  every  auditor  going  his  own  way  alone. 
Schenck  and  Stevenson  walked  down  the  street  together,  but  did  not  speak  a 
word  for  a  block  or  two.  All  at  once  Schenck  ejaculated:  "What  a 
.speech  !  "  "  Yes,"  responded  Stevenson,  with  Kentucky  emphasis,  "  what  a 
speech !  I  was  born  and  bred  in  a  land  of  orators ;  have  been  accustomed 
all  my  life  to  hear  such  giants  as  Clay  and  Menifee,  Crittenden  and  Mar 
shall;  but  blessed  be  God!  I  never  heard  a  speech  like  that." 


REMINISCENCES. 


Thomas  Corwin  was  rather  above  the  usual  size.  He  was  about 
five  feet  ten  inches  high,  of  large  frame,  and  in  the  later  years  of  his 
life  rather  heavy.  His  head  was  finely  shaped.  There  was  some 
thing  in  his  appearance  to  attract  a  second  look  from  a  stranger.  In 
person,  he  was  impressive  and  full  of  dignity,  yet  kindliness  and 
benevolence  shone  out  from  his  eyes  and  face.  His  countenance 
was  pleasing  rather  than  handsome.  His  hair  and  eyes  were  black ; 
his  complexion  unusually  dark,  but  the  saying  that  he  was  "the 
blackest  white  man  in  the  United  States "  was  an  exaggeration. 
When  Corwin  and  Hamer  were  the  greatest  orators  of  the  rival  polit 
ical  parties  of  Ohio,  the  former  was  famous  in  popular  story  for  his 
dark  face,  and  the  latter  for  his  red  hair.  When  Corwin  was  about 
to  begin  a  speech  in  the  open  air  with  the  sun  shining  full  upon  the 
platform,  and  friendly  hands  raised  an  umbrella  to  shield  him  from 
the  sun's  rays,  he  said:  "I  do  not  think  the  sun  will  spoil  my  com 
plexion." 

In  public  speaking  he  had  the  most  remarkable  facial  expression 
of  any  orator  of  his  time.  The  movements  of  his  features  were 
sometimes  rather  grotesque.  He  spoke  with  face  and  eyes  as  well 
as  with  his  tongue.  His  voice  was  not  deep  or  powerful,  but  musi 
cal  and  clear,  and  could  be  heard  over  a  large  open-air  meeting.  He 
did  not  attempt  to  hold  attention  by  noise  and  vehemence.  Though 
he  was  at  times  impassioned  and  on  rare  occasions  even  terrible  in 
ms  invective,  his  manner  was  usually  self-possessed  and  the  tones  of 
his  voice  rich  and  mellow,  but  earnest  and  persuasive.  He  had  great 
dramatic  power,  which  was  evidently  natural.  In  his  public  speak 
ing  there  was  an  entire  absence  of  formality  and  the  studied  graces 
of  the  schools.  In  his  greatest  efforts  there  was  no  striving  after 
learning,  rhetoric  or  oratory.  His  greatest  speeches  would  be  de 
livered  with  infinite  ease.  He  spoke  not  merely  as  a  great  orator  but 

(83) 


84  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

as  a  great  man,  who  was  the  complete  master  of  himself,  and  was 
never  lost  in  thoughts  too  high  or  too  deep,  or  was  overwhelmed 
with  the  vastness  of  his  theme. 

In  preparing  a  speech  Convin  sometimes  made  a  full  brief,  and 
sometimes  wrote  a  page  or  two  which  might  serve  as  an  exordium  or 
.peroration ;  but  it  is  believed  that  none  of  his  great  speeches  in  con 
gress  or  in  political  campaigns  were  written  out  before  their  delivery. 
The  Mexican  war  speech  bears  evidence,  however,  of  careful  prepar 
ation.  He  disliked  even  the  labor  of  writing  out  his  speeches  for 
publication  from  the  stenographer's  notes ;  they  always  disappointed 
him.  A  volume  in  his  library  is  still  pointed  out,  containing  selec 
tions  of  great  speeches  of  British  orators,  in  which  he  was  often 
seen  to  read  while  meditating  upon  a  public  effort,  doubtless  for  the 
purpose  of  getting  his  mind  into  a  proper  mood,  and  imbibing 
something  of  the  style  and  diction  of  a  master  of  the  English 
tongue.  He  would  use  the  same  illustrations,  both  for  amusement 
and  for  argument,  again  and  again,  especially  in  his  campaign  speak 
ing.  The  humorous  description  of  the  militia  parade,  in  his  reply  to 
General  Crary,  is  said  to  have  been  first  given  by  him  in  a  speech  at 
his  home  in  a  trial  before  a  justice  of  the  peace ;  and  A.  P.  Russell 
tells  us  that  he  heard  the  sublime  passages  in  the  Mexican  war 
speech  on  Napoleon  and  the  burning  of  Moscow,  given  by  Corwin 
before  a  small  audience  at  a  debate  in  the  Mechanics'  Institute  at 
Lebanon  before  the  delivery  of  the  speech  in  the  senate. 

Judge  George  R.  Sage  relates  the  following  in  illustration  of  the 
orator's  method  of  preparing  a  public  address:  In  1859  Corwin 
consented  to  deliver  the  oration  at  the  celebration  of  the  fourth  of 
July  on  the  Tippecanoe  battle  grounds,  and  a  large  assembly  was 
expected.  In  the  latter  part  of  the  night  preceding  the  celebration, 
Corwin  called  Mr.  Sage,  his  son-in-law,  to  his  room  and  said  that  he 
was  not  well  and  was  much  discouraged  about  his  address  the  next 
day ;  he  had  been  unable  to  sleep  and  in  trying  to  think  over  his 
speech,  his  memory  seemed  to  have  entirely  failed  him.  Mr.  Sage 
advised  him  to  dismiss  from  his  mind  all  thoughts  of  his  speech, 
take  no  thought  of  the  morrow  and  go  to  sleep.  He  said  he  would 
try  to  do  so.  In  the  morning  the  orator  was  seriously  indisposed 
and  declared  that  he  could  not  speak  at  all.  To  lessen  the  disap 
pointment  of  the  people,  the  master  of  ceremonies  at  the  celebra 
tion  asked  if  Governor  Corwin  could  not  ride  out  to  the  grounds  in 
a  carriage  and  take  a  seat  on  the  platform.  He  consented  to  do  so 


REMINISCENCES.  85 

and  at  the  proper  time  arose  to  explain  his  inability  to  speak.  The 
audience  was  estimated  at  forty  thousand.  After  a  few  remarks  he 
struck  upon  the  first  sentence  of  a  manuscript  he  had  prepared; 
then  Mr.  Sage  whispered  to  the  president  of  the  day,  "It  is  all 
right ;  he  will  speak ;"  and  the  orator  went  on  and  delivered  a  fine 
address,  two  hours  long,  without  referring  to  a  note  or  memorandum. 
The  manuscript  he  had  prepared  was  only  about  a  page  and  a  half 
of  legal  cap,  and  was  to  serve  as  the  beginning  of  the  speech. 

Perhaps  no  orator,  not  of  the  pulpit,  ever  drew  more  frequent 
illustrations  from  the  Bible.  Like  Fisher  Ames,  he  is  said  to  have 

^    _       —  ,  , — •^•••i ^JL^^^^J  - 

been  a  constant  reader  of  the  Bible,  and  to  have  greatly  admired  the 
simplicity  and  purity  of  the  language  of  the  common  English  ver 
sion.  His  mind  was  well  stored  with  biblical  history  and  deeply  im 
bued  with  the  bold  and  tender  imagery  of  Hebrew  poetry.  He 
sometimes  advised  a  law  student  to  read  the  Bible  as  a  first  book  in 
his  course  of  studies. 

The  renown  of  Corwin  as  an  orator,  especially  in  his  own  state, 
was  due  more  to  his  extempore  speeches  on  the  stump  and  at  the 
bar,  never  reported  and  now  lost,  than  to  those  which  have  been  pre 
served.  The  talk  of  the  people  made  him  famous.  It  was  the 
recollection  of  the  masses  wherever  he  spoke,  the  popular  reports  of 
political  campaigns  in  which  he  excelled  all  other  speakers,  and  of 
law-suits  in  which  he  carried  the  jury  with  him  by  his  wit  and  elo 
quence,  the  thousand  familiar  anecdotes — many  of  them  apocryphal 
— with  which  his  name  was  associated,  to  which  is  to  be  attributed  the 
strong  hold  his  name  had  upon  the  popular  heart.  Even  to  the 
school-boys  of  Ohio  for  a  generation  the  name  of  Tom  Corwin  was 
-more  familiar  than  that  of  the  president.  W.  H.  Venable,  the 
teacher-poet,  was  a  native  of  Mr.  Corvvin's  county  and  a  school-boy 
when  the  orator  was  most  famous.  In  some  familiar  reminiscences 
of  his  boyhood,  Venable  writes: 

"  The  air  was  saturated  with  anecdotes  of  Tom  Corwin,  and  even  the 
small  boys  of  Warren  county  could  feel  the  force  of  that  great  orator's  elo 
quence  and  enjoy  the  ludicrous  comicality  of  his  grotesque  faces.  I  heard 
him  speak  more  than  once,  both  at  the  bar  and  on  the  stump,  and,  young  as 
I  was,  I  thoroughly  enjoyed  the  experience.  The  universal  talk  caused  by 
his  great  speech  against  the  Mexican  war  impressed  even  the  children  of  that 
period,  for  it  was  very  violent  talk.  My  father,  being  an  abolitionist, 
approved  of  the  sentiments  of  the  speech.  When  the  war  with  Mexico 
broke  out  I  was  going  to  school  at  Ridgeville,  I  remember,  and  some  of  the 


86  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

boys  stained  their  hands  with  poke-berry  juice  and  then  cried  out:  "  If  I 
were  a  Mexican,  as  I  am  an  American,  I  would  welcome  the  American  sol 
diers  with  bloody  hands  to  hospitable  graves." 


Only.  a  -Jeav  poetic  quotations  are  found  in  Corwin's  printed 
speeches  and  none  of  more  than  three  lines;  but  he  was  a  reader  of 
poelry  .  and  washable,  la  .repeat  many  poetic  jjemslrom  memory.  In 
driving  past  his  boyhood  home,  he  pointed  out  to  his  daughter  the 
tree  under  which,  when  a  boy,  he  first  read  Allan  Ramsay's  "Gentle 
Shepherd."  His  friend,  Dunlevy,  relates  that,  when  law  students 
together,  he  and  Corwin  would  repeat  to  each  other  poems  they 
admired  and  had  committed  to  memory.  In  a  letter  to  the  publish 
ers  of  this  work,  Samuel  Shellabarger  relates  an  incident,  told  him 
by  Roscoe  Conkling,  illustrating  Corwin's  ability  to  repeat  poetry. 
When  Corwin  and  Conkling  were  members  of  the  thirty-sixth  con 
gress,  they  were  riding  together  on  a  steamboat  on  the  Ohio.  The 
weather  was  warm  and  they  sat  up  on  deck  rather  than  go  to  bed, 
and  fell  into  a  poetic  contest,  each  striving  to  outdo  the  other  in 
reciting  gems  of  poetry.  At  length  Corwin  proposed  that  each 
should  repeat  the  most  beautiful  poem  relating  to  death  at  his  com 
mand.  Conkling  was  somewhat  taken  aback  by  the  proposal,  but 
he  struck  on  some  lines  of  one  of  Mrs.  Barbauld's  hymns,  after 
which  Corwin  repeated  a  passage  from  Walter  Scott's  "Rokeby," 
including  the  lines  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  buccaneer  about 
to  die: 

And  now  my  race  of  terror  run, 
Mine  be  the  eve  of  tropic  sun. 
No  pale  gradations  quench  his  ray, 
No  twilight  dews  his  wrath  allay  ; 
With  disk  like  battle-target  red, 
He  rushes  to  his  burning  bed, 
Dyes  the  wide  wave  with  bloody  light, 
Then  sinks  at  once  —  and  all  is  night. 

In  the  same  conversation  with  Mr.  Shellabarger,  Mr.  Conkling  spoke 
of  the  style  and  characteristics  of  Mr.  Corwin's  oratory,  and  main 
tained  that  while  his  wit  and  imagination  were  unique  and  superb, 
yet  the  most  striking  and  in  fact  the  characterizing  quality  of  his 
genius  was  grandeur  combined  with  the  awful;  this,  Mr.  Conkling 
insisted,  marked  pre-eminently  his  greatest  productions,  and  in  illus 
tration  he  recited  portions  of  the  most  brilliant  passages  of  the 
Mexican  war  speech. 


RP:MINISCENCES.  87 

Corwin,  so  far  as  is  known  to  the  writer,  delivered  only  one 
lyceum  lecture.  In  1859  he  gave  the  first  of  a  course  of  lectures  in 
his  own  town  for  the  benefit  of  the  Congregational  society  then 
erecting  a  new  house  of  worship;  and  this  lecture  he  repeated  in 
Henry  Ward  Beecher's  church,  after  leaving  his  home  to  take  his 
seat  in  the  thirty-sixth  congress.  Beecher  had  made  his  church  a 
temple  of  free  speech,  but  most  of  the  lectures  heard  from  its  plat 
form  were  from  radical  leaders  of  the  anti-slavery  agitation.  Cor- 
win's  lecture  was  patriotically  intended  as  a  corrective  of  the  danger 
ous  tendencies  of  the  Garrison  school  of  agitators,  and  he  must  have 
found  his  conservative  views  out  of  tune  in  Plymouth  church.  His 
subject  was  "The  Duties  of  the  American  Citizen,"  and  in  his  lec 
ture  he  argued  the  obligation  of  every  citizen  to  obey  the  laws  of  his 
country.  This  meant  that  the  fugitive  slave  law  should  be  obeyed 
and  not  resisted.  The  time  was  one  of  unusual  excitement.  The 
John  Brown  raid  had  occurred.  There  had  just  been  a  dangerous 
crisis  in  Ohio.  A  mob  had  resisted  the  return  of  a  slave.  An 
effort  had  been  made  to  induce  the  supreme  court  of  the  state  to 
override  the  judgment  of  the  federal  courts,  and  to  discharge .  from 
jail  a  prisoner  convicted  by  the  United  States  district  court  of  violat 
ing  the  law  for  the  return  of  fugitives  from  labor.  Grave  apprehen 
sions  were  felt  of  an  armed  conflict  between  the  state  and ;  the 
national  authorities ;  and  of  the  great  battle  between  the  free  and 
slave  states  being  begun  by  a  northern  state  resisting  a  law  of 
congress.  The  Ohio  supreme  court,  by  a  majority  of  only  one, 
held  that  the  state  ought  not  to  interfere  with  the  action  of  the  fed 
eral  courts  within  their  constitutional  limits.  Judge  Swan,  one  of 
the  ablest  jurists  of  the  state,  on  account  of  his  concurrence  in  this 
decision,  was  refused  a  renomination  by  the  Ohio  Republican  state 
convention.  The  "higher  law"  was  preached  in  northern  pulpits. 
The  Plymouth  pastor,  in  denouncing  the  fugitive  slave  law,  had 
declared  that  "the  law  of  God  is  above  all  laws,  national  or  state, 
constitutional  or  unconstitutional,  and  must  first  be  obeyed."  Cor 
win  now  preached  from  the  greatest  pulpit  in  the  land  the  doctrine 
that  the  law  of  God  required  obedience  to  the  laws  of  the  land. 
We  have  divine  authority  to  make  laws,  he  said. 

"Are  you  then,"  he  asked,  "under  any  moral  obligation  to  obey  the 
laws  when  they  are  made  ?  I  say  you  are.  I  say  every  clergyman  is  under 
that  obligation.  Every  man,  every  woman  and  every  child  when  he 
comes  to  years  of  accountability,  have  imposed  upon  them  a  moral  obliga- 


88  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

tion,  the  discharge  of  which  will  be  accounted  an  acceptable  service  at  that 
great  tribunal,  where  we  must  all  stand  after  our  'ignorance  has  gone,  and 
when  we  stand  in  the  sunlight  of  eternity.  How  the  pardoning  power  may 
be  exercised  when  poor  ignorant  man  stands  up,  saying  that  it  was  conscience 

that  taught  him  it  was  right  to  disobey  law,  I  have  no  knowledge But 

what  then  ?  A  gentleman  rises  up  from  prayer  and  says  that  a  law  is  very 
wrong;  that  it  commands  a  wicked  thing;  he  cannot  obey  it.  There  are  two 
alternatives  for  such  a  man,  exile  and  the  grave.  Either  of  them  is  very 
unpleasant  to  weak  humanity." 

A  few  evenings  before  the  delivery  of  his  lecture  in  Brooklyn, 
Corwin_sat  on  the  platform  of  Beecher's  church  and  heard  for  the 
first  time  the  most  accomplished  of  the  northern  advocates  of  disun 
ion,  Wendell  Phillips,  in  one  of  his  radical  lectures,  "The  Lesson  of 
the  Hour."  He  was  charmed  with  the  manner  and  style  of_the 
great  orator ;  and  he  once  said  to  the  writer  of  these  pages,  that  he 
never  heard  a  speaker  use  the  English  language  with  such  terseness 
and  purity  as  Wendell  Phillips.  But  no  two  men  could  differ  more 
in  their  views  on  great  public  questions.  A  newspaper  writer 
watched  Corwin's  countenance  as  the  lecturer  proceeded  to  eulogize 
John  Brown  as  the  greatest  of  American  heroes,  and  denounce  the 
constitution  and  the  union.  At  times  he  was  entranced  with  the 
eloquence  of  the  speaker,  but  when  Webster  and  Clay  were  held 
responsible  for  the  Mexican  war,  Corwin  shook  his  head,  and  when 
the  constitution  of  the  United  States  was  pronounced,  in  language 
borrowed  from  Isaiah,  "a  covenant  with  death  and  an  agreement 
with  hell,"  his  dark  face  seemed  darker  than  ever,  and  he  looked  like 
"a  god  made  wroth." 

Corwin  was  a  wonderful  conversationist.  In  his  later  years 
conversation  came  to  be  his  chief  amusement.  His  leisure  hours  in 
youth  were  spent  in  reading,  in  after  life  in  talking.  He  was  not 
like  Dr.  Johnson,  "a  tremendous  companion,"  who  talked  for  vic 
tory  and  was  vehement,  dogmatic  and  irascible.  He  charmed  and 
delighted  with  his  conversation.  No  man  in  the  nation  was  more 
welcome  at  a  public  reception  in  Washington  when  he  could  be 
heard  to  talk.  Ex-President  Hayes,  not  long  before  his  death,  in 
an  interview,  said:  "Corwin  was  one  of  the  most  wonderful  talk 
ers  I  have  ever  met.  He  was  the  center  of  every  company  he 
entered,  and  if  he  were  with  us  to-day  he  would  monopolize  the  con 
versation  and  would  talk  for  hours.  We  would  be  glad  to  listen  to 


REMINISCENCES.  89 

him,  and  it  was  so  everywhere,  even  to  the  day  of  his  death.  He 
was  the  best  story-teller  I  have  ever  known." 

A  striking  figure  in  Corwin's  county  was  Orson  S.  Murray,  who 
published  on  his  fruit  farm  on  the  Little  Miami,  "The  Regenerator," 
an  anti-slavery  and  anti-religious  journal.  He  had  come  from  Ver 
mont  ancl  Whittier  described  him  as  "a  man  terribly  in  earnest,  with 
a  zeal  that  bordered  on  fanaticism  and  who  was  none  the  more  genial 
for  the  mob-violence  to  which  he  had  been  subjected."  He  disre 
garded  the  conventional  in  his  dress  and  mode  of  life  as  well  as  in 
his  beliefs ;  he  wore  his  beard  unshaven  and  his  long  hair  hung  down 
on  his  shoulders.  He  was  once  called  as  a  witness  in  a  law-suit  at 
Lebanon,  but  his  testimony  was  objected  to  on  the  ground  that  he 
did  not  believe  in  a  God  and  a  future  state  of  rewards  and  punish 
ments.  Corwin  argued  in  favor  of  receiving  his  testimony,  but  it 
was  under  the  old  constitution  of  Ohio,  and  the  court  would  not  per 
mit  him  to  tell  what  he  knew  about  the  case,  though  no  one  ques 
tioned  his  sincerity  or  truthfulness.  As  the  philosopher  was  leaving 
the  court-room  in  just  indignation,  Corwin  touched  him  on  the  shoul 
der  and  said :  ' '  My  old  JHend,-gQ  home,  shave,  shear,  turn  hypo 
crite  like  the  rest  of  us,  then  come  back  and  your  word  will  be  as 
good  as  ours."  Only  a  few  years  later  a  new  constitution  was 
adopted  in  Ohio  which  declared  that  no  person  should  be  incompetent 
to  be  a  witness  on  account  of  his  religious  belief. 

When  Corwin  was  at  his  home  in  Lebanon,  not  long  before  his 
death,  a  student  of  theology  called  upon  him  to  pay  his  respects. 
As  the  young  man  was  taking  his  leave,  Corwin  said :  ' '  You  are 
preparing  for  the  ministry;  a  noble  profession.  Serve  God;  obey 
the  king.  Good-night." 

He  did  not  believe  there  was  great  danger  of  a  young  man 
injunngjhis  health  by  hard  study.  When  his  son  was  attending  col 
lege  at  Granville,  Ohio,  Mr.  Corwin  wrote  to  him:  "I  am  informed 
that  you  are  seriously  injuring  your  health  by  study.  Very  few 
young  men  now-a-days  are  likely  to  be  injured  in  this  way  and  if 
you  should  kill  yourself  by  overstudy,  it  will  give  me  great  pleasure 
to  attend  your  funeral." 

Those^who  knew  him  best  knew  that  he  was  a  profoundly  seri 
ous  man.  He  was,  like  Lincoln,  a  story-teller  and  a  humorist,  but  at 
heart  a  sad  man.  Even  his  fame  as  a  wit  sometimes  made  him  feel 
that  his  life  had  been  a  failure.  General  Garfield  relates  that  "he 
remarked  very  sadly  one  evening  that  it  was  the  greatest  mistake  of 


90  IFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

his  life  that  he  had  ever  cracked  a  joke  or  made  a  funny  speech,  for 
people  would  never  believe  that  a  funny  man  could  have  any  solid 
abilities,  and  if  he  did  not  make  a  funny  speech  his  audience  would 
be  disappointed."  To  a  young  speaker  Corwin  gave  the  advice: 
"Never  make  people  laugh.  If  you  would  succeed  in  life,  you 
must  be  solemn,  solemn  as  an  ass.  All  the  great  monuments  are 
built  over  solemn  asses."  It  is  doubtless  true  that  the  mass  of  those 
who  assembled  to  hear  him  expected  to  be  amused  rather  than 
instructed,  and  the  brilliance  of  his  genius  and  the  fascination  of  his 
wit  tended  to  make  the  world  less  appreciative  of  his  real  merits  as 
a  profound  thinker  and  a  well-read  statesman.  But  Corwin  over 
looked  the  truth  that  mirth-provoking  humor  may  be  of  a  high  order 
and  exercised  for  noble  ends,  and  a  witticism  may  be  immortal. 

Of  Corwin's  kindness  to  young  men,  especially  those  who  man 
ifested  a  desire  for  literary  culture,  there  is  a  concurrence  of  testi 
mony.  Andrew  G.  McBurney,  a  successful  lawyer,  member  of  the 
state  senate  and  lieutenant-governor  of  Ohio,  was,  at  the  time  Cor 
win  was  beginning  to  attract  the  attention  of  the  nation,  a  poor  boy 
in  Lebanon  who  had  learned  the  trade  of  cabinet-making,  but  mani 
fested  a  strong  desire  for  reading  and  learning.  Corwin  noticed  his 
taste  for  books,  and  on  one  occasion,  as  McBurney  related  a  quarter 
of  a  century  afterward,  met  him  on  the  street  and  advised  him  to 
join  in  the  debates  of  the  Mechanics'  Institute,  gave  him  advice  as  to 
public  speaking  and  tendered  him  the  use  of  his  private  library,  not 
in  a  formal  way,  but  in  such  a  manner  that  the  tender  was  accepted 
by  the  young  man,  who  never  forgot  the  kindness.  "Hej-vas  ever 
ready  and  anxious,"  wrote  McBurney,  "to  assist  the  poor  young 
man  who  was  striving  to  acquire  an  education  or  a  profession ;  often 
inquiring  as  to  his  progress  and  course  of  study,  and  making  timely 
suggestions,  giving  wise  and  useful  counsel,  and  offering  the  use  of 
his  books." 

Addison  P.  Russell  relates  that  when  he  was  a  printer  at  Leba 
non,  Governor  Corwin  one  day  came  into  the  office  of  the  Western 
Star  where  he  was  at  work,  and  picking  up  a  volume  belonging  to 
Russell  which  lay  in  the  window  asked  for  the  use  of  it  for  a  few 
days.  It  was  a  translation  of  Dante.  When  the  governor  returned 
the  book  a  week  or  two  later,  he  came  at  night  into  the  room  of  the 
young  printer  who  was  sitting  alone  by  the  fire.  Corwin  sat  down 
in  a  chair  as  if  he  had  come  to  stay;  he  began  talking  first  about 


REMINISCENCES.  91 

Dante  whom  he  had  not  read  for  many  years,  but  the  Divine  Comedy 
had  engrossed  him  for  the  day ;  he  gave  something  of  an  analysis  of 
the  great  poem,  then  launching  away  into  a  vasty  deep,  he  talked  in 
a  soliloquy  or  monologue  on  life  and  death,  the  present  and  the 
future,  reality  and  possibility.  "Oh,  how  profoundly  and  sublimely 
he  talked.  Every  sentence  was  big  with  thought,  experience  and 
emotion,  and  every  one  seemed  bigger  than  the  one  which  preceded 
it."  Thus  the  great  man  continued  until  midnight  with  no  listener 
but  a  silent  printer  boy,  but  one  who  he  knew  had  a  love  of  liter 
ature  and  had  already  acquired  the  literary  art.  Russell  closes  his  ~T>- 
little  book,  "Thomas  Corwin,  a  Sketch,"  after  telling  the  story  of 
this  talk,  with  the  declaration :  ' '  But  for  that  memorable  demon 
stration  of  his  genius,  this  monograph  would  never  have  been 
written." 

Great  as  was  Corwin's  versatility  he  did  not  excel  as  a  letter- 
writer.  His  official  papers  show  a  felicitous  style,  but  not  much  of 
his  private  correspondence  would  be  worthy  of  preservation.  He 
did  not  wield  a  facile  pen  and  his  handwriting  was  not  good.  He 
disliked  the  labor  of  writing  and  most  of  his  letters  were  short  and 
carelessly  written.  Two  of  his  brief  letters,  never  before  printed, 
are  here  given.  Both  were  copied  for  this  work  from  the  originals 
in  his  possession  by  Isaac  Strohm,  author  of  the  sketch  of  the  life  of  J< 
Corwin  prefixed  to  the  volume  of  his  speeches  published  in  1859.  ' 
The  first  is  a  rough  draft  of  a  letter  found  in  a  waste  basket  at 
Washington  soon  after  his  retirement  from  the  cabinet  and  was 
intended  to  accompany  a  present  to  a  friend  whose  name  is  not 
given : 

"  I  have  long  known  your  high  appreciation  of  the  literary  as  well  as 
personal  character  of  Charles  Lamb.  I  could  worship  him  if  it  were  only 
for  his  almost  divine  affection  to  his  sister,  and  the  sacrifices  made  by  him  to 
that  holy  sentiment; — sacrifices  which  only  such  as  he  are  permitted  by 
Almighty  God  to  make.  And  then,  how  many  a  '  carking  care '  is  con 
sumed  in  the  exquisite  humor  of  Elia ! 

"As  we  shall  soon  be  separated  by  half  a  thousand  miles  of  space,  I 
felt  a  wish  to  leave  with  you  some  memento  which,  while  it  might  keep  alive 
and  fresh  the  memory  of  an  absent  friend,  would  associate  him  with  pure 
and  agreeable  thoughts.  I  could  think  of  nothing  better  for  these  ends  than 
this  humble  Christmas  present — the  works  of  Charles  Lamb.  Long  may  you 
live  to  admire  the  author,  and  revel  in  the  varied  and  singular  wealth  of  his 


92  LIFE    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

Avorks.     You  cannot  be  very  unhappy  while  you  possess  the  genius  and  taste 
requisite  for  either. 

"  With  a  fervent  prayer  that  many  and  many  a  return  of  happy  and 
still  happier  Christmas  days  may  be  in  store  for  you,  I  am  and  shall  always 
be  Your  sincere  friend, 

THO.  CORWIN." 

The  other  was  written  in  reply  to  a  proposition  to  publish  a 
volume  of  his  speeches  with  a  sketch  of  his  life.  The  letter  making 
the  proposition  was  written  soon  after  Mr.  Corwin's  election  to  the 
thirty-sixth  congress  and  opened  with  a  congratulation  on  that  event. 

"  LEBANON,  29th  October,  1858 
"DEAR  SIR: 

"  Congratulations  on  the  happening  of  good  luck,  or  on  the  achieve 
ment  of  great  enterprizes,  or  on  any  event  which  is  agreeable,  are  always 
acceptable.  Now,  I  am  not  quite  sure  that  my  election  is  to  be  classed, 
philosophically,  with  either  of  the  before-mentioned  circumstances.  My  past 
public  life  has  been  replete  with  disappointments.  I  have  fallen  so  far  short 
of  accomplishing  what  I  and  others  aimed  to  do,  that  I  have  little  hope  of 
the  future.  But  I  have  resolved  to  make  another  effort  to  right  the  ship,  and 
if  we  fail  we  will  have  the  consolation  to  know  that  we  did  not  stand  on  the 
shore  while  the  goodly  vessel  was  swamped  in  the  surf. 

"As  to  the  life  and  speeches  which  you  propose  to  publish,  I  scarcely 
know  what  to  say.  It  is  a  very  small  matter  to  be  uncertain  about,  and  yet 
it  wears  about  it  a  certain  dash  of  egotism.  It  seems  like  consenting  to  be 
dressed  up  and  exhibited  as  '  a  show.'  Does  it  not  wear  that  look  ? 
And  yet,  others  have  done  very  much  the  same  thing  for  the  sake  of 
posterity ! ! !  ....  The  life,  God  help  me,  can  be  written  in  an  hour.  My 
inner  life,  the  world  in  which  my  whole  soul  has  lived,  has  been  and  will  for 
ever  be,  even  to  my  intimate  friends,  unknown.  And  yet  this  is  all  of  me 
that  is  worth  knowing.  But  this  I  am  prone  to  believe  is  true  of  all  men 
and  women  who  are  blest  or  cursed  with  natures  which  will  not  rest  upon 
attainments  which  seem  to  be  the  highest  permitted  to  poor,  short-sighted, 
ruined  humanity.  But — amen — I  must  not  preach  now.  Yours  truly, 

THO.   CORWIN." 

Perhaps  the  gravest  defect  in  the  character  of  Corwin  was  a 
carelessness.,  in  pecuniary  matters.  If  this  were  a  grievous  fault, 
grievously  did  he  answer  it.  His  life  was  almost  a  constant  struggle 
with  financial  embarrassments.  Want  of  prudence  in  private  affairs 
is  not  to  be  excused  in  a  public  man  even  though  it  be,  as  in  Cor 
win,  a  failing  which  leans  to  virtue's  side.  It  was  the  generosity  of 


REMINISCENCES.  93 

his  nature  which  led  him  to  spend  money  too  freely  and  to  become 
security  for  an  embarrassed  friend  when  he  was  unable  to  pay  his 
own  debts.  During  much,  if  not  most  of  his  life,  he  was  oppressed 
with  a  heavy  burden  of  debt.  The  same  mail  which  brought  letters 
offering  assistance  to  nominate  him  for  president  brought  others  from 
pressing  creditors  he  had  not  the  heart  to  reply  to.  "I  wonder," 
he  is  reported  to  have  said,  "if  any  other  man  ever  hid  from  the 
constable  to  read  letters  proposing  him  for  the  presidency."  His 
intimate  friend,  Dunlevy,  wrote  of  him  in  1840: 

"Mr.  Corwin  is  in  moderate  circumstances.  Had  he  been  a 'money- 
making  man,  he  might  have  been  independently  rich.  His  practice  at  the 
bar  has  been  extensive  and  he  is  the  first  man  known  to  the  writer  who 
retained  and  attended  to  it  after  holding  and  faithfully  filling  a  seat  in  con 
gress.  The  amount  he  might  have  hoarded  from  his  practice  would  have 
been  great  had  he  been  as  exact  about  collecting  fees  as  some  other  gentle 
men  of  his  profession.  But  he  was  careless  of  collecting  fees  and  his  purse- 
strings  were  always  too  loosely  held  to  retain  what  he  did  realize.  He  is  dis 
tinguished  for  his  liberality  and  has  bestowed  a  handsome  estate,  as  the 
writer  well  knows,  in  charity  and  in  aiding  such  as  required  his  assistance." 

Corwin's  want  of  foresight  and  prudence  prevented  him  from 
ever  attaining  what  Gibbon  calls,  in  his  autobiography,  "the  first  of 
earthly  blessings,  independence.''  He  felt  that  he  never  was  the 
complete  master  of  his  own  time  and  actions  or  had  full  opportunity 
to  follow  his  own  tastes.  There  is  an  allusion  to  the  chain  of  depen 
dence  and  duty  which  bound  him  in  a  private  letter  to  the  author  of 
the  "Corwin  Genealogy,"  who  before  the  publication  of  that  work 
sent  him  some  of  the  results  of  his  researches.  The  letter  is  dated 
at  Lebanon,  September  5th,  1859,  and  concludes  as  follows: 

"Your  researches  sent  me,  for  which  I  thank  you,  are  curious  enough 
and  must  have  cost  great  labor  and  much  time.  But  I  have  resolved  not  to 
enter  into  that  Battle  of  the  Books.  Nevertheless,  had  I  the  leisure,  I  dare 
say  I  should  take  as  much  delight  in  such  inquiries  as  yourself.  But  my 
tastes  have  never  had  fair  play.  The  actual  affairs  around  me  and  upon  me 
have  driven  me,  like  a  slave,  through  a  very  busy  and  very  unprofitable  life 
thus  far  .  .  .  .1  should  like  to  know  you  personally.  Can  you  tell  me  how 
I  can  find  you  and  when  ?  I  am  again  in  that  turbid  water,  politics.  If 
you  come  to  Washington  next  winter,  you  will  find  me  amongst  the  monsters,, 
big  and  little,  that  swim  in  that  sea  of  troubles.  Truly  yours, 

THOMAS  CORWIN." 
E.  T.  CORWIN. 


94  LIFE    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

The  residence  of  Corwin  at  Lebanon  was  on  the  bank  of  a 
small  stream  which  during  most  of  his  life  was  the  western  border  of 
the  town.  It  was  a  large  old-fashioned  frame  house  without  archi 
tectural  pretensions,  built  in  Corwin's  youth,  and  in  it  he  was  mar 
ried.  In  few  mansions  of  Ohio  has  there  been  dispensed  a  more 
generous  or  genial  hospitality.  Distinguished  statesmen,  visiting 
clergymen  and  the  pleasure-seeking  young  were  alike  welcome. 
Mrs.  Corwin  was  a  tall  and  stately  woman  of  commanding  presence, 
and  sensible,  rather  than  brilliant.  She  was  the  daughter  of  Dr. 
John  Ross,  a  physician  of  the  vicinity  of  Philadelphia,  and  on  her 
mother's  side  related  to  the  Randolphs  of  Virginia.  Her  tastes 
were  domestic  and  she  was  never  dazzled  by  the  brilliance  of  public 
life.  Her  married  life  was  spent  at  her  Lebanon  home,  except  two 
or  three  years  in  Washington,  while  her  husband  was  secretary  of 
the  treasury.  She  survived  her  husband  thirteen  years  and  died  in 
1878,  aged  eighty-three  years. 

Corwin_was_ singularly  affectionate  in  his  family.  His  love  for 
his  daughters  was  intense,  and  their  marriage  gave  him  pain.  When 
the  first  wedding  of  a  daughter  occurred,  "he  manifested  so  much 
feeling  that  the  occasion  partook  more  of  the  aspect  of  a  funeral  than 
a  wedding,  and  during  the  marriage  service  he  shed  tears.  General 
Garfield  relates  that  after  his  return  to  Washington  from  the  wedding 
of  his  youngest  daughter,  Corwin  told  him  he  suffered  the  pangs  of 
jealousy  in  the  thought  that  his  daughter  loved  another  man  more 
than  she  loved  him.  He  was  the  father  of  five  children,  all  of  whom 
survived  him.  His  only  son,  William  Henry,  graduated  at  Gran- 
ville  College,  was  secretary  of  legation  to  Mexico  from  1861  to 
1864,  and  charge  d'affaires  at  the  same  capital  from  1864  to  1866, 
and  after  his  return  practiced  medicine  at  Lebanon.  He  was 
never  married  and  died  in  1880.  Catherine,  the  eldest  daughter, 
.died  unmarried.  Evelina  became  the  wife  of  Geo.  R.  Sage,  a  Cin 
cinnati  lawyer,  afterwards  judge  of  the  United  States  district  court; 
Louisa,  the  wife  of  Reverend  E.  B.  Burrows,  of  the  Congregational 
church ;  and  Caroline,  the  wife  of  Dr.  Charles  Cropper,  a  physician 
of  Cincinnati. 

In  early  manhood  he  became  an  active  and  conspicuous  mem- 

a  ber  of  the  Masonic  fraternity.     The  Masonic  lodge  at  Lebanon  was 

chartered  about  the  time  he  began  the  study  of  law,  and  in  1819, 

two  years  after  his  admission  to  the  bar,  he  was  master  of  this  lodge ; 

he  was  grand   orator  of  the  grand  lodge  of  Ohio  in  1821  and  in 


REMINISCENCES.  ^O 

1826^  deputy  grand  master  of  Ohio  in  1823  and  1827,  and  grand 
master  in  1828.  He  became  a  Knight  Templar  in  1818  at  Worth- 
ington,  Ohio,  in  the  first  Templar  organization  west  of  the  Alleghen- 
ies;  and  in  1826  he  organized  and  presided  over  the  first  Templar 
encampment  in  Lebanon. 

lie- was  not  a  church-member.  He  was  reared  in  a  Baptist  fam-  \ 
ily  and  his  wife  and  daughters  were  members  of  the  Baptist  church. 
The  bible,  the  pulpit  and  the  Christian  religion  were  always  referred 
to  in  his  public  addresses  with  respect  and  reverence.  In  his  beau 
tiful  picture  in  congress  of  the  smiling  harvests  of  civilization  spring 
ing  up  in  the  region  lately  red  with  the  blood  of  savage  war,  he 
said:  "That  holy  religion,  which  is  at  last  the  only  sure  basis  of 
permanent  social  or  political  improvement,  has  there  its  voices  cry 
ing  in  the  wilderness." 

The  grave  of  Corwin  in  the  Lebanon  cemetery  is  marked  by  a 
granite  shaft,  but  he  erected  for  himself  a  more  enduring  monument 
in  his  speech  against  the  Mexican  war.  In  the  early  history  of 
Ohio,  while  Thomas  Corwin  was  a  school-boy,  the  land  which  sur 
rounds  his  grave,  then  covered  with  the  primeval  forest,  was  tendered 
by  his  uncle  as  a  donation  for  the  site  of  a  college ;  and  the  commis 
sioners  appointed  by  the  legislature  of  Ohio  to  select  a  place  for 
Miami  University,  on  August  16th,  1809,  reported  that  after  an  ex 
tended  examination,  they  had  chosen  "a.  site  in  the  county  of  Warren 
on  the  western  side  of  the  town  of  Lebanon,  on  the  land  of  Ichabod 
Corwin,  at  a  white  oak  tree  marked  M.  U."  This  white  oak  tree 
stood  but  a  few  rods  east  of  the  grave  of  Corwin.  The  legislature 
by  a  law  afterward  established  that  institution  at  Oxford,  where  it 
has  remained  until  the  present  time. 

The  career  of  Corwin  as  a  public  man  is  one  in  which  the 
American  people  can  take  pride.  Though  with  self-depreciation  in 
his  last  years  he  was  made  sad  with  the  reflection  that  he  might  be 
remembered  only  as  a  joker,  and  though  it  is  true  that  the  recollec 
tion  of  his  humor  has  best  preserved  his  name  among  the  common 
people,  he  will  be  remembered  as  more  than  a  mere  humorist.  Of 
our  wits,  he  was  the  greatest  statesman ;  of  our  statesmen,  he  was 
the  greatest  wit.  The  Whig  party  during  its  short  life  had  for  its 
leaders  the  greatest  men  oi  the  nation,  and  among  them  Corwin's 
place  is  in  the  front  rank.  His  name  is  recorded  high  up  in  the  roll 
.of  the  greatest  American  orators;  he  made  one  of  the  most  truly 


96  LIFE    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

eloquent  speeches  ever  delivered  in  the  United  States  senate,  and  it 
was  in  behalf  of  justice,  humanity  and  national  honor.  He  hated 
slavery  and  firmly  and  consistently  resisted  its  extension ;  yet  along 
with  Clay,  Webster  and  Everett  he  went  to  the  extremest  verge  of 
conciliation  to  save  the  union  and  the  constitution.  He  had  a  broad 
love  of  country  and  a  sublime  devotion  to  the  union.  In  the  fore 
front  of  his  characteristics  was  his  moral  courage.  His  most  mem 
orable  speech  was  the  bravest  ever  heard  in  congress.  He  was  free 
from  the  taint  of  demagogism.  As  a  public  man  he  never  gave  up 
a '  great  principle  for  the  sake  of  preferment,  and  as  a  private  citizen 
he  freely  gave  expression  on  proper  occasions  to  his  convictions  on 
great  public  questions. 


SPEECHES  OF  THOMAS  CORWIN. 


(97) 


SPEECHES  OF  THOMAS  CORWIN. 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  AS  GOVERNOR  OF  OHIO. 

Delivered  to  the  Legislature  December  16,  1840. 


GENTLEMEN  OF  THE  SENATE  AND  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES  : 

Having  been  properly  advised  of  my  election  to  the  office  of 
Governor  of  the  State,  I  am  here,  in  obedience  to  the  law,  to  enter 
upon  the  discharge  of  those  duties  which  the  constitution  and  laws 
of  Ohio  devolve  upon  that  officer. 

Few  and  comparatively  unimportant  as  are  the  duties  which 
our  constitution  has  assigned  to  the  chief  executive  magistrate  of  the 
State,  still  it  is  obvious  that  an  upright  and  faithful  discharge  of 
these  is  due  to  the  interests  as  well  as  the  just  expectations  of  the 
people. 

While  I  am  fully  impressed  with  that  truth,  so  prominent  in  all 
systems  of  representative  government,  that  every  public  functionary 
chosen  by  the  people  is  but  the  instrument  selected  for  the  execution 
of  those  principles  of  government  which  prompt  the  bestowment  of 
their  suffrages  upon  him,  yet  I  cannot  omit  the  present  as  the  most 
proper  occasion  for  expressing  the  deep  sense  I  entertain  of  the 
honor  which,  in  this  instance,  that  selection  has  conferred  upon  me. 
The  grateful  recollection  which  I  shall  ever  cherish  of  this  distin 
guished  testimonial  of  its  confidence,  with  the  interest  I  cannot  but 
feel  in  common  with  every  citizen,  for  the  advancement  of  the  last 
ing  prosperity  and  true  glory  of  the  State,  will,  I  trust,  furnish  at  all 
times  adequate  motives  to  myself,  and  sure  guarantees  to  the  people, 
for  at  least  an  honest  and  faithful  effort  in  all  things  falling  within  the 
constitutional  limits  of  executive  duty.  The  narrow  limits  within 
which  the  executive  power  is  circumscribed  by  the  constitution  of 

(99) 


100  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

Ohio  has  been  the  subject  of  much  curious  speculation — of  no  little 
censure  by  some,  and  of  high  encomium  by  others.  Neither  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  nor  those  of  few,  if  any,  of  the 
States  in  the  Union,  furnish  a  parallel  to  this  strongly-defined  feature 
in  ours.  With  us  the  executive  has  no  agency  whatever  in  the 
enactment  of  laws,  except  the  very  feeble  and  humble  one,  if  agency 
it  may  be  called,  of  "recommending  such  measures  as  he  may  deem 
expedient"  The  laws,  when  passed  through  both  branches  of  the 
Legislature,  are  not  submitted  for  executive  approval,  nor  has  he,  in 
any  contingency,  that  "veto  power"  which,  by  one  class  of  political 
philosophers,  has  been  deemed  essential  to  protect  the  people  against 
a  supposed  hasty,  impolitic,  or  unconstitutional  action  of  the  legis 
lative  department.  Except  in  one  or  two  instances  of  very  subordi 
nate  character,  the  power  of  appointment  to  office  by  the  Governor  is 
limited  to  such  vacancies  as  may  occur  in  the  recess  of  the  Legisla 
ture,  and  such  appointments,  when  made,  expire,  by  express  limita 
tion,  at  the  close  of  the  next  succeeding  session  of  that  body.  The 
admirers  of  a  strong  executive  have,  in  my  judgment,  most  errone 
ously  supposed  that  a  large  patronage,  resulting  from  the  power  of 
appointment  to  office,  was  a  necessary  branch  of  executive  power,  in 
order  to  give  stability  to  the  Government  and  secure  a  prompt  and 
faithful  execution  of  the  laws.  The  denial  of  this,  as  well  as  the 
veto  power,  to  the  Executive  by  our  constitution  ( forming,  as  they 
do,  a  striking  peculiarity)  can  probably  only  be  rationally  accounted 
for  by  reference  to  the  history  of  the  times  which  gave  it  birth. 
The  constitution  of  Ohio  was  formed  in  November,  1802,  very 
soon  after  a  most  animated  struggle  between  two  great  political  par 
ties  in  the  United  States,  which  had  resulted  in  the  election  of  Mr. 
Jefferson  to  the  Presidency.  Of  the  questions  which  divided  the  peo 
ple  of  that  day,  that  touching  the  powers  and  patronage  of  the  Exec 
utive  was  prominent.  They  who  favored  a  restricted  power,  and 
stinted  executive  patronage,  prevailed,  and  of  this  school  (then 
denominated  Republican)  was  the  convention  that  framed  our  Con 
stitution.  A  fearful  jealousy  of  executive  power,  with  a  strong  con 
viction  of  the  pernicious  influence  of  executive  patronage,  all  will 
agree,  are  indelibly  impressed  upon  their  work,  and  our  experience 
of  nearly  forty  years  has  given  abundant  proofs  of  the  wisdom 
which  (in  this  respect  at  least)  exerted  its  influence  upon  their 
labors.  Under  this  system,  Ohio,  it  is  believed,  has  advanced  with 
a  pace  equal  to  any  of  her  sister  States  in  the  augmentation  of  her 


INAUGURAL    ADDRESS.  101 

population  and  the  development  of  her  resources;  nor  in  those  laws 
and  social  institutions  which  advance  the  intellectual  and  moral  con 
dition  of  a  people  need  she  fear  a  comparison  with  much  older  com 
munities,  governed  by  different  organic  laws.  Under  this  constitu 
tion,  the  rights  of  person  and  property  have  been  fully  protected ; 
all  the  great  guarantees  of  civil  liberty  have  been  preserved,  and,  in 
the  vicissitudes  of  war  and  peace,  the  laws  have,  in  general,  been 
promptly  and  vigorously  enforced.  If  occasional  and  even  flagrant 
exceptions  to  this  view  of  our  history  are  to  be  found,  it  will  be 
readily  seen  that  they  were  of  short  duration  and  had  not  their  ori 
gin  in  the  want  of  executive  power  to  prevent  or  control  them. 
After  an  interval  of  forty  years  the  people  of  the  United  States 
have  again  agitated  the  subject  of  a  strong  or  restricted  executive 
action  in  the  Federal  Government,  and  again  decided  it  as  they  did 
in  1800 — furnishing  to  the  citizen  of  Ohio  another  proud  testimonial 
of  the  excellence,  in  this  particular,  of  the  constitution  under  which 
he  lives. 

I  advert  to  this  subject  now  with  no  view  to  particular  legisla 
tion  but  upon  the  supposition  that  a  contingency  may  arise  when  it 
may  become  the  duty  of  the  Legislature  to  express,  in  the  usual 
way,  the  opinions  of  the  State  upon  it,  in  reference  to  some  modi 
fication  of  the  executive  power  as  defined  in  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States. 

Under  our  complex  system  of  government  no  subject  has  given 
rise  to  greater  difficulty,  or  variety  of  opinion,  than  that  of  the 
true  division  of  legislative  power,  under  the  Constitution,  between 
the  General  Government  and  the  States. 

On  all  subjects  of  this  character,  prudence  and  patriotism  alike 
demand  that  both  parties  should  forbear,  if  possible,  to  enter  the 
field  of  conflict  in  pursuit  of  a  questionable  claim  of  jurisdiction. 
That  spirit  of  concession,  so  powerfully  operative  in  the  formation  of 
the  Federal  Constitution,  should  always  be  invoked  by  those  whose 
duty  it  may  be,  either  as  officers  of  the  General  or  State  authorities, 
to  fix  its  true  interpretation.  When  we  regard,  however,  the  invari 
able  tendency  of  power  to  reach  after  still  further  and  more  extended 
dominion,  and  when  we  consider  the  obvious  advantage  which  the 
National  Government  enjoys  in  a  conflict  with  a  single  State  of  the 
Union,  arising  from  its  greater  wealth  and  patronage,  and  by  conse 
quence  its  superior  influence  over  public  opinion,  it  becomes  the 
obvious  duty  of  the  State  Legislatures  to  watch  with  vigilance,  and, 


102  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

on  all  questions  not  within  the  province  of  the  judiciary,  to  assert,  in 
a  peaceful  yet  resolute  tone,  the  claims  and  powers  of  the  weaker 
party. 

The  present  financial  condition  of  our  State,  as  well  as  the 
intrinsic  importance  of  the  subject,  will,  I  am  sure,  justify  me  in 
bestowing,  at  this  time,  a  passing  notice  on  a  claim  often  preferred 
by  Ohio,  with  many  other  States  in  the  Union,  the  adjustment  of 
which,  though  at  one  time  on  the  point  of  completion,  still  remains 
a  subject  open  for  the  consideration  and  final  action  of  Congress. 

Several  years  ago  Congress,  by  very  full  majorities  in  both 
branches,  passed  an  act  providing  for  distributing  the  moneys  arising 
from  the  sale  of  the  public  lands  among  the  States.  This  act  was 
predicated  upon  the  proposition  that  the  public  lands  were  held  by 
Congress  in  trust;  that  the  objects  of  the  trust  were  specified  in  the 
deeds  of  cession  comprehending  these  lands ;  that  these  deeds  of  ces 
sion  were  compacts ;  that  the  parties  to  these  compacts  had  agreed 
that  the  lands  so  ceded  should  be  sold  by  the  General  Government, 
and  the  moneys  arising  from  the  sale  should  be  appropriated  to  the 
payment  of  the  then  national  debt,  and  then  the  remainder  should  be 
distributed  among  the  several  States  of  the  Union  in  a  specified  pro 
portion.  At  the  time  of  the  passage  of  this  bill,  the  national  debt 
was  entirely  extinguished,  and  it  was  believed  by  Congress  that  the 
contingency  had  occured  upon  which  the  distribution  among  the 
States  should  commence.  This  argument,  derived  from  the  notion 
of  a  compact  embracing  the  subject-matter  of  the  bill,  did  not  com 
prehend  that  portion  of  the  public  domain  embraced  within  the  pur 
chase  of  Louisiana  and  Florida,  ceded  directly  to  the  General  Gov 
ernment  by  France  and  Spain  respectively. 

The  propriety  of  subjecting  this  last  class  to  the  principle  of  dis 
tribution  was  founded  on  a  variety  of  considerations.  It  was 
believed  by  many,  whose  opinions  are  entitled  to  great  considera 
tion,  that  the  public  domain  was  not  properly,  nor  ever  should  be, 
considered  a  source  of  revenue  to  the  national  treasury.  A  belief 
then  prevailed,  to  such  an  extent  as  to  amount  to  almost  univer 
sal  admission,  that  under  any  properly-adjusted  system  of  impost 
duties  on  foreign  goods,  the  moneys  arising  from  that  source 
would  be  always  equal  to  the  wants  of  the  General  Government  in 
time  of  peace,  while  those  wants  should  be  limited  by  that  strict 
economy  and  republican  simplicity  which  should  always  characterize 
the  institutions  of  a  free  people. 


INAUGURAL    ADDRESS.  103 

It  would  seem  that  the  justice  and  propriety  of  conceding  this 
claim  to  the  States,  should  not  now  be  a  question.  By  the  passage 
of  the  act  to  which  I  refer,  Congress,  the  proper  trustees  of  the 
fund,  and  the  only  legitimate  guardians  of  the  national  treasury,  has 
acknowledged  the  right,  and  given  its  sanction  to  the  expediency  of 
the  measure  The  reason,  and  the  only  reason,  why  we  are  not 
at  this  moment  in  the  enjoyment  of  our  proportion  of  this  rich  fund, 
is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  President,  then  in  the  executive 
chair,  refused  his  assent  to  the  bill  for  that  purpose,  thus,  by  the  will 
of  one  man,  nullifying  the  combined  resolves  of  the  representatives 
of  both  the  people  and  the  States.  It  is  a  singular  fact,  and  worthy 
our  attention,  as  illustrating  the  operation  of  the  veto  power  of  the 
President,  and  the  influence  it  gives  to  the  opinion  of  one  man  over 
the  opinions  of  the  many,  that  a  majority  of  the  sovereign  States  of 
the  Union  have,  at  various  times,  insisted  on  the  distribution  of  this 
fund  as  a  matter  of  policy,  and  many  of  them  as  a  matter  of  positive 
right,  and  Congress  have  in  pursuance  of  this  undoubted  expression 
of  the  wishes  of  the  States  and  people,  enacted  a  law,  and  yet, 
by  the  simple  interposition  of  the  will  of  one  other  branch  of  the 
Government,  the  will  and  power  of  the  people  and  the  States  are 
rendered  of  no  effect. 

Neither  duty  nor  inclination  invite  me  to  bring  to  your  notice 
all  those  subjects  to  which  your  attention  has  been  called  by  my  pred 
ecessor  in  the  proper  discharge  of  his  duties ;  yet,  in  the  present 
condition  of  our  affairs  as  a  State,  and  in  view  of  the  onerous  taxa 
tion,  which  must  continue  for  some  time  to  press  heavily  on  the  peo 
ple,  I  have  thought  it  my  imperative  duty,  at  the  earliest  proper 
moment,  to  solicit  your  attention  to  this  subject. 

It  is  scarcely  possible  to  suggest  an  idea  touching  the  proper 
revenues  of  the  State,  or  our  prospects  as  a  people,  without  associa 
ting  with  these,  in  our  thoughts,  the  condition  of  that  currency 
which  is  the  measure  of  value  to  all  property  and  labor,  and  which, 
therefore,  may  be  considered  as  one  of  the  indispensable  elements  of 
a  social  state  of  existence.  Wherever  society  has  advanced  to  the 
point  where  there  is  such  a  division  of  labor,  as  that  the  products  of 
one  become  necessary  to  another,  there  some  representative  of  the 
value  of  such  exchangeable  commodities  has  been  invented.  As 
any  community  advances  in  population,  and  multiplies  the  variety 
and  quantity  of  its  productions,  this  representative  of  value  also 


104  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

increases  in  amount,  so  as  to  insure  a  ready  and  convenient  transfer 
of  the  labor  of  one  portion  to  another,  without  the  slow  and,  in 
many  instances,  impracticable  process  of  barter  between  the  two. 
Wherever  a  thriving  and  industrious  community,  with  ample  means 
to  apply  its  labor  to  future  acquisitions,  has  been  found,  there  the 
proceeds  of  that  labor  in  the  future  have  supplied  the  place  of  this 
medium  of  exchange,  in  the  form  of  credit,  and  this  last  has,  by 
'experience,  been  found  in  general  so  safe  that  in  governments  where 
a  stable  order  of  things  prevail,  and  the  rights  of  the  citizens  are 
well  protected,  it  has  obtained  universal  prevalence.  Among  the 
inventions  of  nations  most  commercial,  and  farthest  advanced  in  civ 
ilization,  to  supply  this  medium  of  trade,  banks  of  circulation,  as 
modern  institutions  of  that  sort  are  called,  have  borne  a  conspicuous 
part.  After  the  experience  of  hundreds  of  years,  since  their  first 
appearance,  they  still  survive,  and  may  be  said,  at  this  time,  to  be 
more  prevalent  than  at  any  former  period.  So  thoroughly  have 
these  institutions  been  wrought  into  the  texture  of  the  affairs  of  the 
world  that  they  have,  even  in  our  country,  been  chartered  and  sus 
tained  by  the  common  consent  of  those  who  differed  widely  on  every 
other  great  question  of  public  policy.  It  is  not  now,  therefore,  a 
question  whether  banks  shall  continue  among  us  in  Ohio,  but  only 
under  what  modifications  and  restrictions  they  shall  be  permitted  to 
live.  With  three  or  four  exceptions,  the  charters  of  all  the  banks 
in  Ohio  will  expire  in  two  years  from  this  time.  They  have,  I 
believe,  at  this  time  a  debt  due  them,  which,  in  the  aggregate, 
amounts  to  about  ten  millions  of  dollars.  If  their  charters  are  not 
to  be  renewed,  then  it  is  not  merely  the  dictate  of  prudence,  but  the 
command  of  necessity,  that  they  should  cease  to  make  further  issues, 
and  by  every  proper  means  endeavor  to  collect  their  debts,  and  close 
finally  their  entire  business.  Should  the  great  curtailment,  almost 
ruinous,  which  has  taken  place  in  the  circulation  of  the  banks  of 
this  State,  within  the  last  eighteen  months,  be  followed  by  the  collec 
tion  of  the  debts  due  the  banks,  while  their  capital  remains  unem 
ployed,  it  must  produce  a  state  of  things  in  this  country  which  has 
never  been  paralleled  by  any  of  those  contingencies  in  trade, 
or  unusual  expansions  and  contractions  in  banking,  which  in  former 
times,  we  have  had  occasion  to  deplore.  With  the  present  Legisla 
ture  it  remains  to  determine  whether  the  permanent  interests  of  the 
State  are  to  be  promoted  by  encountering  such  a  crisis. 

As  the  establishment  of  some  permanent  system  of  banking  in 


INAUGURAL    ADDRESS.  105 

this  State  devolves  on  the  Legislature,  and  as  that  responsibility  and 
labor  must  be  encountered  now,  and  as  the  subject  is  one  of  such 
prevading  and  deep  moment,  I  have  thought  that  my  duty  would  not 
be  discharged  without  adding  my  recommendation  to  the  universal 
expectation  of  the  people  that  it  should  receive  your  early  and  most 
anxious  consideration.  I  am  aware  that  the  subject  has  been  and  is 
considered  one  of  great  difficulty  in  theory,  and  hazardous  in 
practice. 

If  we  analyze  all  the  objections  to  banks,  as  instruments  for  fur 
nishing  a  currency,  it  will  be  found  that  they  resolve  themselves 
mainly  into  two,  which  are  said  in  practice  to  be  the  natural  results 
of  the  system. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  said  that  banks  use  the  credit  which  their 
charters  give  them  to  extend  the  circulation  of  their  paper;  that, 
either  from  imprudent  management  or  from  fraudulent  motives,  they 
at  times  refuse  to  pay  gold  or  silver  for  their  notes ;  that  this  depre 
ciates  the  value  of  their  paper,  and  to  the  extent,  more  or  less,  of 
such  depreciation  occasions  a  loss  to  the  holders  of  their  bills.  That 
instances  have  occurred  in  the  past  history  of  banks  to  warrant  this 
objection  no  one  can  deny.  But  it  is  not  true  that  this  has  been 
either  an  invariable  or  general  consequence  of  our  system  of  bank 
ing.  The  occurrences  upon  which  this  objection  is  founded  have 
been  occasional  with  chartered  institutions,  and  not  general.  If  we 
compare  the  losses  sustained  by  the  community,  from  the  partial  and 
total  failures  of  incorporated  banks  to  redeem  their  promises,  with 
the  failures  and  bankruptcies  of  individuals  engaged  in  trade,  to  the 
same  extent,  we  shall  find  the  latter  exceed  those  of  the  former  class 
by  an  almost  incalculable  sum. 

If  the  community  were  deprived  of  that  credit  which  is  now 
furnished  by  banks,  any  one  conversant  with  the  enterprising  spirit 
of  our  people  will  at  once  see  that  individuals  and  voluntary  associa 
tions  would  furnish  that  credit  in  other  forms.  It  then  becomes  a 
question  which  of  these  two  is  safest  to  the  laboring  and  pro 
ducing  classes?  If  this  be  the  true  question,  and  our  experience  is 
not  utterly  deceptive,  its  solution  at  once  results  in  favor  of  incor 
porated  companies,  guarded  by  every  provision  which  the  wisdom  of 
the  Legislature  may  suggest. 

The  second  objection  to  banks  is,  that  they  expand  their  circu 
lation  at  one  time  to  an  unnatural  extent,  and  thus  raise  the  price  of 
labor  and  property,  and  by  a  sudden  withdrawal  of  that  circulation, 


106  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

either  from  necessity  or  choice,  reduce  the  value  of  both,  thus,  by 
reducing  the  value  of  the  debtor's  means  of  payment,  in  effect  aug 
menting  the  amount  of  the  creditor's  demand  against  him.  That 
this  may  be,  and  has  been  often  done  by  banks,  is  certainly  true; 
but  that  the  same  amount  of  credit  in  any  other  form,  or  a  sudden 
influx  of  the  precious  metals,  and  its  sudden  efflux,  would  produce 
the  same  evils  is  equally  true.  Instances  of  the  latter  kind  are  num 
erous,  and  too  well  known  to  justify  me  in  recapitulating  them  here, 
in  which  banks  had  not  the  remotest  influence,  happening  in  coun 
tries,  too,  where  a  metallic  was  the  only  currency. 

In  those  instances,  however,  in  which  banks  have  produced 
either  of  the  evils  complained  of,  it  is  worthy  of  consideration 
whether  the  fault  lay  in  the  institutions  themselves  or  originated  in 
an  extraneous  influence  exerted  upon  them.  In  the  notable  instance 
of  suspension  of  specie  payments  by  the  banks  of  England,  in  1797, 
it  is  a  well-known  fact  that  an  order  of  the  King  and  Council  given 
to  the  bank,  produced  it,  and  that  it  was  continued  by  acts  of  Parli- 
ment,  from  time  to  time,  till  the  year  1823,  when,  by  the  judicious 
arangements  of  the  bank,  it  resumed  payments  without  producing 
any  derangement  in  the  commerce  of  the  country,  or  prejudice  to 
the  finances  of  the  kingdom.  The  large  issues,  and  consequent  sus 
pension  of  the  banks  in  our  country,  which  took  place  from  1812  to 
1820,  have  been,  with  great  justice,  ascribed  to  the  loans  made  by 
the  Government  of  the  banks,  which  were  the  only  means  of  prose 
cuting  the  war ;  which,  returning  upon  them  at  the  close  of  the  war, 
with  a  foreign  demand  for  specie,  with  the  failure  in  business  at  that 
time  of  many  of  their  debtors,  rendered  suspension  inevitable,  and 
in  many  instances  were  followed  by  an  ultimate  close  of  business. 
Among  the  causes  that  produced  the  recent  suspensions  in  1837,  the 
influence  of  the  Government,  though  by  no  means  intended,  is  nev 
ertheless  distinctly  perceivable.  The  whole  revenues  of  the  General 
Government  were  deposited  with  them,  under  an  injunction  from  the 
Treasury  department,  to  use  them  as  banking  capital.  A  confidence 
in  their  strength,  arising  from  this  connection  with  the  Government, 
natural  enough,  though,  as  the  event  proved,  delusive,  contributed 
greatly  to  those  large  issues  prior  to  1837,  of  which  so  much  com 
plaint  has  been  made.  The  contractions,  too,  which  have  followed, 
producing  the  most  disastrous  effects  upon  the  country,  although  to 
a  great  extent  a  necessary  consequence  of  previous  over-issues,  were, 
nevertheless,  hastened  and  pushed  too  rapidly  forward  by  well-meant 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS.  107 

endeavors  on  the  part  of  the  Legislature  to  improve  the  currency. 
Surveying  the  past  history  of  such  institutions,  and  availing  ourselves 
of  a  dispassionate  view  of  our  own  errors,  as  well  as  theirs,  we  may 
hope  that  a  faithful  effort,  at  this  time  to  establish  them  on  a  firm  and 
secure  basis  will  be  attended  by  happy  results.  To  this  end  I  have 
to  suggest  a  brief  outline  of  those  plans  which  appear  to  embrace  a 
preventive  of  the  two  great  evils  I  have  noticed — insolvency  of  the 
institutions  and  consequent  loss  to  the  community,  and  unnatural 
expansions  and  contractions  of  the  currency.  The  first  is  a  State 
Bank,  with  a  convenient  number  of  branches,  at  proper  points  in  the 
State,  with  a  capital  of  such  amount  as  the  business  of  the  country 
would  seem  to  require.  Each  branch  to  own  its  own  stock  as  its 
own  separate  property;  but  to  receive  its  paper  from  a  common 
source,  and  be  subject  to  the  control  of  a  parent  board  chosen  by 
the  stockholders  of  all  the  branches.  In  this  plan,  the  whole  capital 
employed  in  the  State  should  be  bound  for  the  redemption  of  the 
notes  of  every  branch,  the  parent  board  having  power,  under  proper 
limitations,  to  control  the  business  of  all  the  branches.  As  the 
whole  capital  is  to  be  pledged  for  the  liabilities  of  each  separate 
branch,  a  board  representing  the  capital  should  have  full  power  to 
protect  it  against  the  mismanagement  of  those  for  whose  conduct  in 
this  scheme  it  is  made  ultimately  responsible.  In  this  plan,  it  is  pro 
posed  to  give  the  State  a  proportion  of  the  stock,  not  exceeding 
one-fifth  of  the  whole,  which  should  be  represented  by  a  correspond 
ing  vote  in  the  election  of  officers.  The  books  of  all  the  institution 
should  be  opened  at  all  times  to  the  inspection  of  the  parent  board, 
and  subject  also  to  the  inspection,  at  any  and  all  times,  of  the  Legisla 
ture,  in  such  mode  as  it  should  direct.  The  amount  of  circulation 
at  any  and  all  of  the  branches  to  bear  a  proportion  to  their  capital, 
to  be  fixed  by  the  Legislature  in  the  charter.  It  is  especially  desir 
able  that  the  charter  should  specify  the  cases,  if  any,  on  which  a  for 
feiture  of  the  charter  should  follow,  and  that  the  facts  in  such  cases 
should  be  found  by  a  trial,  in  proper  form,  in  the  judicial  courts  of 
the  State.  In  this  scheme,  also,  it  would  seem  to  be  proper  to  make 
the  notes  of  each  branch  receivable  in  payment  of  debts  at  every 
branch  in  the  State.  To  withdraw  from  the  directory  all  induce 
ment  to  extravagant  and  injudicious  issues,  and  to  put  an  end  to  the 
practice,  said  to  avail  to  some  extent,  of  adopting  improper  methods 
to  avoid  the  provision  of  law,  which  forbids  the  receipt  of  more 
than  six  per  cent,  per  annum  on  loans,  it  should  be  provided,  that 


108  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

the  amount  of  dividends,  when  they  exceed  a  given  per  cent,  per 
annum,  should  be  paid  in  the  State  Treasury. 

The  second  plan,  which  has  been  much  the  subject  of  discus 
sion,  and  which  would  seem  to  be  a  great  improvement  on  the  exist 
ing  system,  embraces  the  proposition  of  re-chartering  so  many  of 
the  present  banks  of  the  State  as  shall  be  thought  necessary,  and 
such  of  them  only  as  on  thorough  examination  shall  be  found  to 
be  in  a  sound  and  healthy  condition. 

In  this  scheme  it  is  proposed  to  compel  all  that  shall  receive 
charters  to  unite  in  the  election  of  a  Board  of  Control,  each  bank  to 
be  entitled  to  vote  in  proportion  to  its  capital.  This  board,  who 
may  or  may  not  hold  stock  in  any  bank,  as  the  Legislature  shall 
determine,  to  issue  all  paper,  and  to  sign  it  by  officers  to  be  chosen 
by  it;  to  receive  reports  from  each  bank  at  stated  periods,  embrac 
ing  all  its  transactions,  verified  by  the  oaths  of  its  officers.  It 
is  proposed,  also,  to  vest  the  board  with  power  to  examine  into 
the  affairs  of  all  the  banks  at  stated  periods,  to  be  fixed  by  law,  and 
oftener,  if  they  deem  it  necessary,  and  to  close  the  business  of  any 
bank  when,  in  its  judgment,  such  bank  had  conducted  its  business  in 
such  manner  as  to  render  it  unsafe  to  permit  its  further  continuance, 
and  in  all  such  cases  the  assets  of  such  bank  should  be  transferred 
to  the  board,  for  the  purpose  of  liquidating  all  claims  outstanding 
against  it. 

In  this  plan  it  is  also  proposed  to  make  the  capital  of  each  bank, 
and  all  of  them  who  shall  accept  of  charters,  liable  for  the  debts  of 
«very  other  bank,  and  to  compel  them  to  receive  the  notes  of  each 
other  at  all  times  in  the  payment  of  debts,  and  to  redeem  each  its 
proper  proportion  of  the  notes  of  any  other  that  may  suspend  specie 
payment,  or  be  closed  by  the  Board  of  Control. 

It  would  also  be  a  salutary  provision  in  this  scheme  to  limit  the 
dividends  to  stockholders,  and  bring  into  the  State  Treasury  all  the 
profits  arising  from  the  operations  of  the  banks  above  such  limita 
tion,  and  also  to  limit  in  the  charter  the  amount  of  circulation  as 
compared  with  the  capital  of  the  several  banks. 

I  have,  as  it  must  be  obvious,  only  thought  it  necessary  to 
sketch  an  outline  of  some  of  the  most  prominent  features  of  the 
scheme  proposed.  I  have  been  impelled  at  this,  as  to  some  it  may 
seem,  unusual  time  to  bring  them  to  the  view  of  the  Legislature, 
as.the  loud  call  of  the  people  of  the  State  summons  it  to  immediate 
action  of  some  sort  upon  this  all-important  subject. 


INAUGURAL    ADDRESS. 

In  either  of  the  plans  which  are  here  suggested  it  is  believed 
sufficient  guards  are  provided  against  over-issues,  leading  to  danger 
ous  expansions  of  the  currency,  while  a  capital  varying  from  six  to 
ten  millions  of  dollars,  with  all  the  property  of  the  banks,  are 
pledged  as  a  perpetual  security  to  the  holders  of  the  paper  of  every 
bank  embraced  in  the  scheme.  It  is  undoubtedly  proper  that  the 
Legislature  should  reserve  the  power  to  inspect  the  books  and  exam 
ine  into  the  affairs  of  the  banks,  by  such  agents  as  they  may  from 
time  to  time  select,  and  that  the  Board  of  Control  should  make  an 
annual  report  to  the  Legislature,  embracing  a  full  statement  of  the 
business  and  condition  of  the  banks  under  its  supervision.  It  is 
important  in  this,  as  in  every  other  charter,  which  creates  a  compact 
between  the  State  and  its  citizens,  that  those  acts  which  should  work 
a  forfeiture  of  the  corporate  powers  granted,  should  be  specifically 
named,  and  the  mode  of  judicating  such  forfeiture  clearly  pointed 
out. 

It  is  believed  that  the  establishment  of  the  banking  capital  of 
the  State  on  a  permanent  and  secure  basis  might  be  the  means  of 
great  occasional  relief  in  the  future  prosecution  of  our  public  works. 
The  want  of  funds  for  this  purpose,  arising  from  the  temporary 
derangement  of  the  money  market  abroad,  could  be  supplied  by  the 
banks  of  our  own  State,  were  they  assured  of  the  further  continu 
ance  of  their  charters  on  proper  principles. 

The  losses  which  have  been  sustained  by  contractors  and  labor 
ers,  at  times  occasioned  by  a  failure  of  the  State  to  make  punctual 
and  frequent  payments,  might  in  such  cases  be  avoided.  They 
might  be  made  useful  to  the  State  in  this  way,  in  enabling  it  to  ful 
fill,  as  it  always  should  with  rigid  precision,  its  compacts  with  both 
its  foreign  and  domestic  creditors,  an  object  which,  it  is  hoped, 
will  never  be  lost  sight  of  by  any  who  may  be  charged  with  the  pre 
servation  of  the  character  and  honor  of  the  State.  The  high  repu 
tation  which  our  stocks  have  maintained  in  the  markets  of  the  world 
has  been  earned  by  a  scrupulous  fidelity  in  complying  with  our  con 
tracts.  The  public  improvements  of  the  State,  those  enduring  mon 
uments  of  her  enterprise,  are  the  fruits  of  that  character.  That 
faith-keeping  principle  which  shrinks  with  abhorrence  from  the  idea 
of  a  broken  promise,  is  alike  the  offspring  of  the  pure  morality  of  a 
Christian  people,  and  that  lofty  public  honor  which  is  a  prominent 
characteristic  of  our  republican  institutions.  Whatever  theoretical 
speculators  upon  the  nature  of  legislative  compacts  may  argue,  he 


110  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

has  been  but  a  superficial  observer  of  the  people  of  Ohio  who  does 
not  know  that  their  tax-payers  would  gladly  incur  taxes  fifty  fold 
more  burdensome  than  the  present  rather  than  endure  for  a  day  the 
deep  disgrace  which  attaches  to  broken  promises  and  violated  public 
faith.  Such  an  idea  is  the  less  tolerable  in  Western  American, 
because  of  its  almost  boundless  resources,  and  the  constantly 
increasing  energy  and  numbers  of  its  people. 

Our  present  position  as  a  member  of  the  Union,  compared 
with  the  past,  cannot  fail  to  awaken  in  the  bosoms  of  our  citizens 
proud  and  gratifying  reflections.  Our  state  occupies  a  commanding 
position  in  the  great  valley  west  of  the  Alleghany  mountains ;  a  val 
ley  which,  by  the  estimates  of  those  well  informed,  contains  a 
greater  quantity  of  productive  soil  than  is  to  be  found  in  one  body 
elsewhere  on  the  surface  of  the  globe.  Though  many  parts  of  Ohio 
present  to  the  eye  of  a  Western  American  what  seems  to  him  a 
crowded  population,  yet  it  is  certain  that  when  compared  with  its 
capacity  to  sustain  and  feed  its  people,  no  portion  of  our  territory  has 
as  yet  been  filled.  If  we  glance  our  eyes  over  the  statistics  of  other 
parts  of  the  world,  not  more  fruitful  in  whatever  contributes  to  the 
sustenance  of  a  dense  population,  and  see  to  what  extent  the  produc 
tive  powers  of  the  earth  may  be  carried,  where  population  has  long 
pressed  upon  subsistence,  we  shall  find  that  any  portion  of  Ohio 
compared  with  such  is  as  yet  little  better  than  an  untenanted  and 
uncultivated  waste.  Looking  forward  to  the  time  when  the  yet  un 
occupied  agricultural  and  manufacturing  powers  of  the  State  shall  be 
fully  developed,  and  taking  our  past  progress  as  a  guide  to  the  fut 
ure,  we  may,  without  egotism,  indulge  proud  hopes  of  the  ultimate 
destinies  of  the  State.  When  we  entered  upon  a  State  government  in 
the  year  1802,  our  population  numbered  sixty  thousand.  Now, 
after  a  lapse  of  thirty-eight  years,  we  count  a  million  and  a  half 
within  our  borders.  Then  we  were  a  few  scattered  settlements, 
trembling  in  the  presence  of  the  lately  subdued  Indian  tribes  that 
still  hovered  on  our  frontier,  and  were  entitled  to  but  one  representa 
tive  in  the  popular  branch  of  Congress ;  now  we  rank  third  in  num 
bers  among  the  twenty-six  States  of  the  Union,  and  have  a  larger 
share  of  power  in  the  Legislature  of  the  Nation  than  many  of  the 
oldest  States,  whose  settlements  began  two  hundred  years  before  the 
white  man  built  his  first  cabin  within  the  limits  of  the  State. 

Through  the  valley  lying  between  the  Rocky  Mountains  on  one 
side,  and  the  Alleghany  range  on  the  other,  following  the  course  of 


INAUGURAL   ADDRESS.  Ill 

the  Mississippi,  Ohio,  and  Alleghany  rivers,  we  have  an  uninter 
rupted  steamboat  navigation  of  twenty-four  hundred  miles  in  length. 
This  great  channel  of  commerce  on  one  side,  and  the  lakes  of  the 
north  on  the  other,  intersected  by  canals,  roads,  and  rivers,  with  a 
rich  soil  and  healthful  climate,  while  they  account  for  our  past 
history,  furnish  certain  and  most  cheering  augury  of  our  future 
progress. 

The  direction  which  shall  be  given  to  that  future,  under  our 
Constitution,  mainly  depends  upon  the  legislative  department.  To 
subject  to  useful  purposes  all  the  physical  resources  of  the  State,  and 
through  these  to  insure  the  great  ends  of  our  existence,  the  moral 
and  intellectual  improvement  for  all  the  people,  to  the  highest  at 
tainable  point ;  these  are  the  great  objects  of  legislative  regard.  To 
the  Legislature  belongs  the  lofty  glories  that  await  a  wise  exertion 
of  that  power,  and  on  it  devolves,  also,  the  fearful  responsibilities 
which  its  high  position  imposes. 

Fully  assured  that  your  deliberations  will  all  aim  to  advance  the 
interests,  and  secure  the  happiness  of  our  common  constituents,  as  it 
has  become  my  duty,  so  shall  it  be  my  greatest  pleasure,  within  my 
proper  sphere,  to  extend  a  most  hearty  co-operation. 


MASONIC   ORATION. 


DELIVERED  AT  HAMILTON,  OHIO,  JUNE  24,  1826. 


FELLOW-CITIZENS  AND  BRETHREN: 

The  pleasure  which  I  should  feel  in  having  been  distinguished 
by  your  confidence  on  this  interesting  occasion,  is  much  impaired  by 
the  humiliating  conviction  that  I  shall  not  do  justice  to  your  hum 
blest  expectations.  The  particular  cause  of  this  painful  embarrass 
ment  must  be  obvious  to  that  portion  of  this  numerous  assembly, 
which  belongs  to  the  Masonic  family.  The  anniversary  which  has 
called  us  together  has  been  celebrated  by  us  for  many  centuries 
past  with  sacred  and  undisturbed  punctuality.  You  will  therefore  at 
once  perceive,  that  all  the  topics  which  are  naturally  suggested  by 
the  occasion  have  been  essayed  and  exhausted  by  the  highest  order 
of  mind  which  a  succession  of  ages  could  produce.  The  path  pre 
scribed  to  me  is  not.  only  strewed  with  the  fairest  flowers  of  speech, 
but  it  is  cultivated  and  adorned  on  every  side  with  the  rich  creations 
of  the  most  exalted  intelligence.  Thus  situated,  the  conspicuous 
position  to  which  I  have  been  called  by  the  kind  partiality  of,  my 
brethren  would  be  appalling  indeed  were  I  in  the  presence  of  an 
audience  unacquainted  with  my  pursuits  in  life,  and  my  humble  pre 
tensions  in  public  declamatory  address.  To  these  considerations  I 
feel  it  due  myself  to  add  that  my  professional  engagements,  for  sev 
eral  months  past,  have  been  such  as  to  preclude  even  the  possibility 
of  presenting  you  with  any  production,  however  brief,  characterized 
by  study  and  preparation.  These  remarks  are  not  submitted  from 
any  servile  fear  of  your  criticism,  for  I  have  not  the  vanity  to  believe 
that  the  brief  and  undigested  observations  I  shall  make  will  be 
deemed  of  sufficient  importance  to  render  them  the  subject  of  either 
censure  or  applause ;  but  they  are  offered  in  justice  to  the  fraternity 

whose  humble  organ  I  am,  that  you  may  not  form  a  hasty  judgment 

(112) 


MASONIC    ORATION.  113 

of  Freemasonry  from  what  you  may  chance  to  hear  from  me  under 
circumstances  so  unfavorable  to  a  fair  development  of  her  principles. 
There  are  doubtless  many  present  who  would  be  gratified  to  know 
the  particular  reasons  which  induce  us  to  adhere  with  such  rigid 
exactitude  to  the  celebration  of  this  day  as  a  Masonic  festival. 
This  natural  curiosity  may  be  gratified  by  a  few  obvious  considera 
tions. 

We  have  assembled  in  accordance  with  a  very  ancient  usage 
among  Masons,  to  offer  our  public  homage  to  the  memory  of  St. 
John  the  Baptist.  The  propriety  of  perpetuatjng  the  memory  of 
striking  events  and  illustrious  men  by  anniversary  celebrations,  can 
be  inferred  from  the  practice  of  every  nation  in  every  age  of  the 
world.  In  the  early  stages  of  human  association  other  means  were 
employed  to  insure  this  noble  and  beneficent  purpose.  A  pyramid 
of  stone,  a  misshapen  tomb,  with  traditional  narratives  transmitted 
by  hereditary  piety  from  age  to  age,  served  to  inform  the  unlettered 
savage  of  the  gratitude  he  owed  to  the  hero  of  his  tribe,  or  the  law 
giver  of  his  nation,  whose  memory  otherwise  the  ever-rolling  current 
of  years  had  overwhelmed  in  oblivion.  The  Romans  wisely  pre 
served  in  consecrated  temples  lasting  memorials  of  the  founder  of 
their  empire,  and  the  enlightened  Greeks,  availing  themselves  of  the 
art  of  sculpture,  perpetuated  in  marble  the  sages  and  heroes  of  their 
race.  Thus  did  the  early  benefactors  of  nations  live  for  centuries 
beyond  their  natural  existence,  and  continue  to  make  salutary  im 
pressions  upon  succeeding  times.  Modern  anniversaries,  sacred  to 
the  memory  of  those  whose  virtues  have  created  eras  in  the  history 
of  man,  have  this  end  in  view,  and  subserve  in  a  higher  degree  the 
same  valuable  design. 

For  these  reasons,  as  often  as  the  wheels  of  time  roll  on  the 
nativity  of  John  the  Baptist,  as  Masons  we  are  taught  to  separate 
our  thoughts  from  the  cares  that  waylay  all  our  paths  through  this 
world,  and  consecrate  our  reflections  upon  the  exalted  qualities 
which  characterized  this  extraordinary  man.  He,  our  traditions 
inform  us,  was  an  active  and  firm  adherent  to  the  grand  tenets  of 
Masonry,  and  our  Masonic  injunctions  require  us  to  revere  him  in 
the  double  character  of  an  inspired  servant  of  the  most  high  God, 
and  a  devoted  supporter  and  patron  of  our  ancient  institution.  By 
this  custom — consecrated  by  time,  approved  by  reason,  and  sanc 
tioned  by  the  holiest  aspirations  of  the  heart — we  hope  to  superin 
duce  in  our  lives  and  conduct  a  closer  approximation  to  the  virtues 
9 


114  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

which  marked  the  character  of  our  patron  saint,  in  whose  life  we  are 
taught  to  believe  the  pristine  beauties  of  brotherly  love,  relief,  and 
truth  shone  forth  in  effulgence  unfading,  without  a  cloud  to  shadow 
their  radiance  from  an  admiring  world.  The  most  careless  observer 
will  see  at  a  glance  the  striking  difference  between  this  and  almost 
every  other  public  festival  known  to  the  present  age.  We  do  not 
assemble  to  immortalize  the  achievements  of  a  conquering  general, 
or  to  rejoice  at  a  fortunate  victory  over  the  contending  foe.  We 
meet  to  commemorate  the  reign  of  peace,  and  cherish  those  retiring 
virtues  of  the  heart  that  shun  the  glare  of  public  show,  and  extend 
to  the  afflicted  and  obscure  their  unseen  beneficence.  Hence,  in  our 
public  exhibitions  there  is  nothing  to  excite  the  strong  emotions  of 
the  soul.  The  wild  tornado  that  levels  whole  cities  with  the  ground, 
and  whelms  your  navies  in  the  devouring  seas,  impresses  the  mind 
with  a  horror  that  time  can  seldom  efface ;  while  the  common  air  that 
keeps  the  mysterious  machine  of  life  in  motion,  and  is  everywhere 
diffusing  health  abroad,  scarcely  excites  a  passing  thought.  The 
lofty  mountains,  whose  lone  summit  is  robed  in  volcanic  flame, 
arrests  the  imagination  with  an  intensity  that  no  object,  however 
pleasing,  can  divert;  while  the  extended  plain,  whose  humble  shrubs 
and  flowers  and  fruits  bring  abundance  and  happiness  to  all  around, 
is  seen  without  emotion,  and  passed  by  without  a  single  reflection. 
But  in  a  much  more  important  particular  is  this  anniversary  distin 
guished  from  those  of  a  political  or  purely  national  character.  If 
we  assemble  to  commemorate  the  achievements  of  a  general,  who 
by  slaughter  and  conquest  has  contributed  to  national  renown,  the 
cannon's  roar  and  the  victor's  trophy  necessarily  associate  with  them 
the  memory  of  embattled  fields  and  conflicting  hosts.  Is  the  ban 
ner  of  victory  displayed?  Imagination  sees  in  its  train  "famine, 
sword  and  fire  crouch  for  employment."  Do  we  gaze  with  rapture 
upon  the  laurel  that  encircles  the  conqueror's  brow?  The  noble 
ecstacy  is  repressed  when  fancy  beholds  it  crimsoned  over  with  the 
blood  of  the  slain,  and  grasping  with  its  tendrils  the  cypress  that 
weeps  over  the  vanquished,  perhaps  the  generous  foe.  Even  on  our 
own  national  festival,  whose  annual  return  reminds  us  of  our  happy 
deliverance  from  a  foreign  yoke,  the  angry  remembrance  of  a  hated 
and  vindictive  foe  mingles  in  our  most  fervid  gratitude  to  heaven, 
and  stains  it  with  the  black  hue  of  revenge.  Far  different  are  the 
feelings  which  the  recollections  of  this  day  inspire.  The  emblems 
displayed  by  us  speak  only  of  the  peaceful  triumphs  of  virtue  over 


MASONIC    ORATION.  115 

vice,  and  indicate  a  charity  and  good  will  as  wide  in  their  desires  and 
action  as  the  globe  itself.  Delineated  on  the  clothing  we  wear  is  the 
temple  of  Masonry.  Behold  its  ample  dimensions !  Its  indestruct 
ible  foundations  extend  from  the  north  to  the  south,  and  sweep  from 
the  farthest  east  to  the  remotest  west.  It  tells  you  that  her 
expanded  portals  are  open  to  receive  the  just  and  upright  in  heart 
of  every  tongue  and  clime ;  that  the  arms  of  Masonic  charity  inclose 
within  their  fostering  embrace  the  entire  family  of  man.  Turn  your 
eye  to  that  star — it  is  emblematical  of  that  which  guided  the  wise 
men  of  the  east  to  the  birth-place  of  the  Redeemer.  Contemplate 
for  a  moment  those  parallel  lines — one  of  these  represents  St.  John 
the  Baptist,  the  harbinger  of  the  long-promised  Messiah. 

How  richly  instructive  the  reflections,  and  how  sweetly  accord 
ant  to  the  impulses  of  Christian  piety  are  the  emotions  which  these 
exhibitions  are  calculated  to  wake  up  in'  the  mind  and  heart ;  the 
obstreperous  note  of  the  battle-song  is  still,  the  shout  of  victory  is 
hushed,  while  the  soul,  attuned  to  harmony  and  peace,  breaks  forth 
in  the  cherub  strain  that  announced  the  advent  of  the  Savior, 
"Peace  on  earth  and  good-will  toward  men."  Another  striking  char 
acteristic  of  our  symbols  is  the  ancient  date  to  which  they  evidently 
refer.  They  remind  us  that  Masonry  existed  in  times  long  gone  by. 
That  temple  would  indeed  seem  to  assert  the  origin  of  Masonry  to 
be  coeval  at  least  with  Solomon,  its  illustrious  builder. 

Upon  this  subject  it  may  be  observed  that  the  time  when  Masonry 
began  to  exist  is  a  matter  of  small  importance  when  compared  with 
its  true  tendency  and  design.  Yet  since  this  is  a  point  upon  which 
there  is  much  curious  speculation  among  men,  and  about  which 
there  is  some  contradiction  and  more  conjecture  among  those  distin 
guished  for  their  knowledge  of  ancient  history,  I  will,  in  passing,  sub 
mit  to  your  consideration  some  facts  which  bear  upon  this  much  con 
tested  point.  In  doing  this,  I  shall  unavoidably  notice  some  things 
which  will  show  the  moral  character  of  Masonry,  and  the  use  which 
a  mysterious  providence,  in  ancient  times,  has  made  of  our  order. 
History  is  not  silent  in  regard  to  the  ancient  existence  of  Masonry, 
though  from  the  very  nature  of  this  society,  its  identity  could  not 
be  distinctly  traced  along  the  track  of  time  and  made  public  by  his 
torical  record. 

It  has  never  been  denied  that  Masons  are  to  found  in  almost 
every  country  which  has  been  subjected  to  modern  discovery. 
Nations  who  have  had  no  intercourse  whatever  with  each  other,  dif- 


116  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

fering  in  language,  manners  and  laws,  have  seen  their  subjects  meet 
for  the  first  time  and  recognize  each  other  to  be  members  of  the 
Masonic  fraternity.  In  every  quarter  of  the  globe,  however,  the 
grand  features  of  Masonry  are  found  to  be  the  same.  This  is  true 
in  regard  to  tribes  and  countries  where  letters  and  the  arts  are 
extinct,  and  where  commerce  and  modern  improvement  have  as  yet 
made  no  impression  upon  the  national  character.  This  remarkable 
coincidence,  which,  I  believe,  is  admitted  by  all  remains  to  be 
accounted  for.  To  this  end  let  me  direct  your  attention  to  the  very 
few  facts  which  I  am  at  liberty  here  to  state.  We  are  informed 
by  a  writer  whose  intelligence  and  veracity  has  never  been  questioned 
that  most  of  the  Tyrians  who  had  been  employed  by  Solomon  in  the 
erection  of  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  after  the  completion  of  the 
building,  returned  to  their  native  country.  We  learn  from  the  same 
source  that  about  this  time  many  of  the  Jews  who  had  been  engaged 
in  building  the  temple  migrated  to  Phoenicia,  a  country  of  which 
Tyre  was  at  that  time  the  principal  city.  This  Jewish  colony,  for 
some  cause  left  unexplained  by  the  historian,  was  oppressed  by  its 
neighbors,  and  became  weary  of  its  possessions.  In  these  difficul 
ties  they  flew  to  their  friends  for  relief.  The  Tyrains  who  had 
labored  with  them  upon  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  mindful  of  their 
sacred  obligations,  which  seven  years'  mutual  toil  and  the  interchange 
of  all  the  kindly  offices  which  their  fraternal  connection  had  induced, 
furnished  their  Jewish  brethren  with  ships  and  provision.  They 
took  their  departure  for  a  foreign  land.  If  they,  as  workmen  at  the 
temple,  had  been  invested  with  secrets  not  known  to  others,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  but  they  preserved  and  carried  them  wherever  they 
went.  They  left  Tyre,  passed  the  straits  of  Hercules  and  finally  set 
tled  in  Spain.  They  bade  a  final  adieu,  not  only  to  their  adopted 
country,  but  doubtless  they  bade  a  last  farewell  to  the  land  promised 
as  a  heritage  to  them  and  their  posterity  forever.  In  this  mournful 
pilgrimage,  if  they  possessed  the  secrets,  there  can  be  no  doubt  but 
they  carried  with  them  the  sacred  symbols  of  Masonry,  and  in  the 
land  of  the  Gentile  erected  the  altar  and  lighted  up  the  lights  of  the 
Order.  Strabo,  whose  general  accuracy  is  surpassed  by  no  author 
of  his  time,  informs  us  that  about  one  hundred  and  ninety  years 
after  the  Trojan  war,  which  would  be  about  fifteen  years  after  the 
completion  of  the  temple,  a  colony  of  Jews  from  Palestine  made  a 
permanent  settlement  on  the  western  coast  of  Africa.  From  these 
three  points  we  follow  the  march  of  Masonry  throughout  the  world. 


MASONIC    ORATION.  117 

In  all  the  countries  settled  by  emigration  from  these,  or  connected 
with  them  by  alliance  and  commerce,  Masonry  is  found,  her  signs 
the  same,  her  mystic  word  the  same  in  all.  The  most  rational  con 
clusion  from  these  premises  would  seem  to  be  this,  that  Masonry 
had  its  origin  from  some  common  source  far  back  in  the  annals  of 
the  world,  and  from  the  ceremonies  and  emblems  of  the  Order,  that 
source  could  be  no  other  than  Solomon,  the  king  of  Isreal.  It  is 
also  clear  that  Masonry  began  in  the  erection  of  the  temple  at  Jeru 
salem,  that  temple  designed  to  preserve  the  unadulterated  worship 
of  the  only  living  and  true  God.  These  remarks  can  only  apply  to 
the  six  first  degrees  of  Masonry.  Let  us  ascend  to  the  seventh,  and 
see  if  there  is  nothing  in  the  "Royal  Arch"  to  show  that  this  last 
had  its  origin  with  those  great  and  good  men  who  built  the  second 
temple  upon  Mount  Moriah.  There  are  a  variety  of  facts  derived 
from  sacred  history  all  tending  to  show  that  from  the  death  of  Solo 
mon  to  the  completion  of  the  second  temple,  the  Pentateuch,  or 
five  books  of  Moses,  were  very  rare,  and  that  at  one  time,  at  least, 
they  were  believed  to  be  entirely  lost.  Josiah,  a  prince  remarkable 
in  history  for  having  restored  the  true  worship  of  God  in  Jerusalem, 
reigned  in  Judea  about  fifty  years  before  the  Babylonish  captivity. 
During  his  reign  it  is  stated  as  a  remarkable  fact,  "that  the  book  of 
the  law  was  found  by  Hilkiah  the  Priest  in  the  house  of  the  Lord." 
That  this  was  the  only  copy  then  known  to  be  extant  is  rendered 
certain  from  the  joy  expressed  by  the  King  at  the  event.  We  are 
told  that  when  it  was  read  to  the  good  King,  "he  rent  his  gar 
ments,"  such  were  his  transports  in  knowing  that  the  sacred  legacy 
of  Moses  was  still  in  possession  of  his  divided  and  afflicted  people. 
From  this  time  until  the  days  of  Ezra,  a  period  of  about  one  hun 
dred  and  seventy  years,  we  hear  nothing  in  sacred  history  of  the 
books  of  the  laws.  The  ark,  it  is  well  known,  with  the  law  and  the 
covenant,  always  remained  in  the  temple.  As  these  were  objects  of 
sacred  regard  and  religious  veneration  with  the  Jews,  so,  doubtless, 
they  would  have  been  most  valued  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  had  they 
fallen  into  his  hands  when  Jerusalem  was  sacked  and  the  temple 
destroyed.  Had  they  been  captured  by  him  and  carried  with  the 
consecrated  vessels  to  Babylon,  and  there  preserved,  so  important  a 
fact  could  not  have  been  overlooked  by  the  sacred  historian.  But, 
from  the  silence  of  history,  all  doubtless  supposed  the  law  and  the 
testimony  to  be  forever  lost ;  such,  however,  was  not  the  design  of 


118  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

Heaven.       Where,    then,   do  we  next  hear  (after  a  silence  of  one 
hundred  and  seventy  years)  of  this  sacred  deposit. 

The  learned  and  proverbially  accurate  Dr.  Prideaux  assures  us, 
that  after  the  second  temple  was  finished,  there  existed  an  associa 
tion  of  men  at  Jerusalem  who  had  certain  secrets  unknown  to  the 
rest  of  the  world;  that  Ezra  was  the  chief  of  this  society,  and  that 
he  was,  with  his  brethren,  many  years  engaged  in  transcribing  the 
books  of  the  law.  Another  historian,  speaking  of  the  same  society, 
tells  us  that  the  Hebrew  name  by  which  they  were  known  signifies 
tradition.  These  facts  would  seem  to  establish  two  important  partic 
ulars  ;  first,  that  there  was  then  extant  but  one  copy  of  the  book  of 
the  law,  it  being  an  object  of  such  great  importance  to  increase  the 
number;  and  secondly,  that  Ezra  and  his  brethren  who  were  engaged 
in  this  sacred  duty,  having  secrets  unknown  to  the  world,  and  a 
name  corresponding  with  a  grand  feature  of  Masonry,  "Tradition,"' 
were  Royal  Arch  Masons  and  practiced  the  rights  of  the  "sublime 
degree."  From  these  facts  it  would  appear  that  Masonry,  reviled 
by  ignorance  and  persecuted  by  prejudice,  was  at  this  time  the  hum 
ble  means  employed  by  divine  providence  to  preserve  the  only  reve 
lation  as  yet  received  from  God. 

The  sacred  temple  had  stood  for  four  hundred  years,  the  only 
altar  not  contaminated  with  idolatrous  sacrifice.  There  within  the 
"Holy  of  Holies"  the  law  and  testimony  in  the  heaven-appointed 
custody  of  the  Levite  had  safely  reposed ;  but  the  conquering  Chal 
dean  came,  Jerusalem  is  laid  waste,  the  lofty  columns,  the  porticoes 
and  brazen  pillars  of  the  temple  yield  to  the  devouring  flames,  and 
sink  in  undistinguished  ruin;  the  consecrated  vessels  are  borne  away 
in  triumph,  and  the  house  of  Israel  is  carried  captive  to  Babylon. 
The  law  and  the  testimony  are  heard  of  no  more,  the  feast  and  the 
sacrifice,  the  priest  and  the  alter,  are  alike  forbidden  and  hateful  to 
the  heathen  oppressor ;  the  captive  Jew  hung  his  harp  on  the  willows 
and  wept  by  the  streams  of  Babylon.  When  they  believed  the  ark 
and  the  covenant  between  God  and  his  chosen  people  were  forever 
lost,  no  wonder  they  mourned  for  the  desolation  of  the  city  of  David 
and  exclaimed:  "When  I  forget  thee,  oh  Jerusalem,  may  my  right 
hand  forget  her  cunning  !  "  After  his  long  captivity,  when  he  again 
returned  to  the  land  of  his  fathers,  how  did  the  soul  of  the  pious 
Jew  glow  with  gratitude  to  those  who  had  preserved  the  law  and  the 
testimony  from  the  devastation  of  war,  and  the  ruin  of  time,  and 
again  deposited  the  sacred  book  in  the  house  of  the  Lord.  WThen 


MASONIC    ORATION.  119 

we  take  into  consideration  only  the  few  meager  facts,  thus  slightly 
sketched,  we  should  suppose  the  pious  Christian  would  pause  before 
he  denounces  this  unoffending  Order,  to  which  the  best  men  have 
adhered  for  many  ages  past ;  surely  the  polite  scholar  and  the  learned 
antiquarian  should  hesitate  before  they  join  a  censorious  and  ill-judg 
ing  world  in  the  assertion  that  Masonry  is  the  offspring  of  a  barbar 
ous  age,  that  it  is  calculated  for  no  great  attaintment,  and  has  sub 
served  no  valuable  design. 

If  the  ancient  history  of  our  Order  is  illustrious  for  having  par 
ticipated  in  great  events,  it  will  be  found  that  its  career  in  modern 
times  is  not  less  so  for  having  furnished  a  remedy  for  evils  which 
could  find  no  redress  in  any  other  of  the  institutions  of  man.  A 
very  brief  retrospect  of  the  history  of  our  afflicted  race  will  show 
a  necessity  for  the  establishment  of  a  society  having  a  sublime  and 
pure  morality  for  its  ethics,  and  a  scheme  of  benevolence  toward 
man,  enforced  by  penalties  distant  from  the  common  obligations  of 
social  or  municipal  law.  The  earliest  records  of  man  are  replete 
with  the  history  of  his  cruelties  and  crimes.  He  was  indeed  created 
upright  in  the  image  of  his  God,  but  alas,  how  brief  is  the  season 
of  his  continuance  in  his  primitive  state.  Scarcely  had  the  first 
family  taken  its  social  form  when  the  blood  of  Abel  ascended  to  the 
skies,  a  melancholy  witness  to  the  apostasy  of  man,  and  a  sure 
presage  of  his  future  career.  Hence  the  faithful  historian,  from 
Adam  to  the  deluge,  and  from  thence  to  our  own  times,  speaks  only 
of  tribe  warring  with  tribe,  power  conflicting  with  power,  till  some 
warlike  butcher,  more  fortunate  than  his  peers,  has.%brought  contend 
ing  communities  and  tribes  within  the  grasp  of  his  sole  domination 
and  compressed  them  into  one  bloody  mass,  subdued  and  inert,  upon 
which  he  exerts  his  uncontrolled  dominion.  Religion,  it  is  true, 
held  forth  her  persuasives  to  virtue,  but  in  the  estimation  of  thought 
less  men,  her  rewards  were  valueless,  because  they  were  postponed 
beyond  the  term  of  his  mortal  career.  Her  dreadful  penalties 
appalled  him  not,  because  they  were  to  fall  on  him  hereafter,  and  he 
hoped  by  amendment  to  avoid  their  infliction.  The  destines  of  the 
world  seemed  to  be  committed  to  man,  and  he  used  his  power  only 
for  the  purposes  of  destruction.  War,  cruel  and  relentless  war,  in 
every  age  has  deluged  the  peaceful  earth  with  the  blood  of  its  inhab 
itants,  and  imbittered  it  with  their  tears.  Government  and  jurispru 
dence,  it  is  true,  in  modern  times,  have  done  much  for  suffering 
humanity.  But,  so  various  are  the  characters  of  men,  so  complex 


120  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

the  structure  of  society,  and  so  diversified  the  crimes  with  which  it 
is  afflicted,  that  the  wisest  statesmen  have  given  up  the  task  as  hope 
less,  and  submit  patiently  to  endure  evils  which  their  utmost  sagacity 
cannot  prevent.  Treachery  in  friendship,  hypocrisy  and  deceit,  and 
ingratitude  that  sin  denounced  by  savage  and  civilized  man,  must 
still  go  unpunished.  In  despite  of  all  political  regulation,  power 
will  sometimes  accumulate  in  the  hands  of  the  few,  and  the  weak  are 
subjected  to  its  licentious  sway.  We  still  see  oppression  in  some 
shape  pursuing  its  victim  with  the  eye  of  the  eagle  and  the  vulture's 
appetite.  The  philanthropist,  with  all  his  ardent  desires  for  the  hap 
piness  of  his  species,  looks  on  in  hopeless  impotence.  Here 
Masonry  interposes ;  power,  wealth,  and  all  the  adventitious  aids  of 
fortune  create  no  preference  in  her  choice;  she  receives  the  sufferer 
within  her  walls  and  throws  the  aegis  of  her  protection  around  him. 
If  the  purple  of  majesty,  as  has  been  the  case,  finds  its  way  into  the 
lodge,  the  monarch  sees  and  confesses  that  his  regal  diadem  is  of  no 
more  value  than  the  sordid  rags  of  the  beggar.  Here  all  meet  on 
the  level  of  perfect  equality.  The  brow  of  power  unbends  its 
haughty  curve  at  the  well-known  sign,  and  the  frown  of  anger  gives 
place  to  the  smile  of  conciliation  at  the  "mystic  word."  There  all 
are  taught  that  stern  perseverance  in  upright  and  virtuous  life,  can 
only  give  pre-eminence  to  one  man  above  another.  Thus  instructed 
and  qualified,  the  Mason  goes  forth  from  the  lodge  with  new  motives 
and  added  obligations  to  rectitude  of  life.  However  humble  and 
unambitious  his  fortune  or  name,  he  goes  forth  with  confidence.  If 
he  is  "just  and  true,"  that  confidence  is  never  deceived.  The  fidel 
ity  of  Masonry  is  universal,  he  shall  not  be  forsaken.  To  whatever 
clime  he  wanders  it  is  still  the  same,  the  language  of  Masonry  is 
universal,  he  shall  be  recognized  as  a  brother.  No  matter  how 
adverse  his  fate,  the  charity  of  Masonry  is  universal,  if  worthy,  he 
shall  be  relieved.  Shall  I  be  told  that  these  are  the  fanciful  theories 
of  a  creed  that  wastes  itself  in  idle  boast  and  empty  show?  Was 
the  immortal  Warren,  the  fated  martyr  of  Bunker  Hill,  the  patron 
of  hypocritical  profession  ?  Could  the  mighty  soul  of  Washington 
stoop  to  hypocrisy,  or  be  delighted  with  idle  pageantry?  Could  the 
philosophic  Franklin,  who  encountered  the  tempest  and  disarmed  it 
of  its  bolt,  be  pleased  or  satisfied  with  boastful  pretentions  and 
ceremonious  frivolity?  Surely  there  is  no  American  so  base  as  will 
not  answer  no.  Yet  Washington,  Franklin  and  Warren  bore  their 
united  testimony  in  our  favor,  by  both  profession  and  practice,  while 


MASONIC    ORATION.  121 

they  lived.  These  three  undying  names,  while  they  confer  immortal 
renown  upon  the  American  character,  shed  also  a  halo  of  glory 
round  the  alter  of  Masonry,  where  they  were  often  pleased  as  Grand 
Masters  to  preside.  These  things  I  have  thought  it  my  duty  to  say 
of  a  society  of  which  many  of  your  friends  are  members,  not  as  a 
formal  defense,  but  that  Masonry  may  be  judged  by  what  she  truly 
is,  and  not  by  ignorant  assertion,  or  malicious  conjecture. 

Permit  me  now,  my  brethren,  in  a  few  words,  to  solicit  your 
attention    to    some    of  the    important    duties    which    our  principles 
teach,  and  our  penalties  enforce.      You  have  come  together  for  the 
avowed  purpose  of  offering  your  public  testimonial  to  the  virtues  of 
one  whose  life,  in  our  Masonic  instruction,  is  constantly  held  forth  as 
a  model  for  every  Mason's   imitation.     Temperance,    that  Masonic 
virtue  so  often  neglected,  and  so  solemnly  impressed  upon  us  in  our 
lectures,  was  the  most  striking  feature  in  the  character  of  John  the 
Baptist.       Seeing,  with  prophetic  vision,   the   important  station   he 
was  to  occupy  in  accomplishing  the  designs  of  his  Master,  he  pos 
sessed  a  moral  courage  that  raised  him  to  an  elevation  of  soul  equal 
to  the  task.      He  appeared  in  the  world  among  a  people  adverse  in 
their  habits  to  the  abstinent,   self-denying  life  he  lived.     The  long 
and  well-established  reign  of  Polytheism  brought  the  united  religions 
of  Rome,  and  all  her  tributary  states,   to  oppose  the  peculiar  doc 
trines  he  was  commissioned  to  usher  into  the  world.      Rome  herself, 
at  this  period,  was  rapidly  marching  to  the  full  maturity  of  national 
sin.     The  laurels  that  bloomed  round  the  tombs  of  her  early  heroes 
were  forgotten  for  the  inhuman  sports  of  gladiators  and  frivolous 
public  shows.      Her  triumphal  arches  began  to  droop,  and  the  stern 
integrity  which  characterized  her  early  days  had  now  expired  in  the 
sensual  delights  of  the  bath.     Yet,  in  the  midst  of  these  allurements 
to  luxury,  his  food  was  locusts  and  wild  honey.     Surrounded  with 
obstinate  bigotry,  at  the  peril  of  his  life,  he  marched  with  steady 
and  fearless  step  to  the  fulfillment  of  his  master's  will,  and  when  the 
arm  of  power  was  outstretched  for  his  destruction,  he  boldly  pro 
claimed  the  wickedness  of  Herod,  and  foretold,  in  the  startled  ear  of 
the  tyrant,    the  coming  vengeance  of  God.      Chains  and  imprison 
ment  had  no  terrors  for  him,  for  integrity  of  heart  brought  uncon 
querable  fortitude  to  his  aid,  and  when  his  work  was  finished,  dis 
daining  that  sycophantic  spirit  that  might  suggest  a  compromise  with 
his  oppressor,  with  dauntless  confidence  he  met  the  blow,  and,  like 
one  of  the  Grand  Masters  of  our  Order,  he  sealed  his  fidelity  with 


122  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

his  blood.  Had  I  the  tongue  of  angels,  still  in  this  mirror  you  shall 
see  more  than  words  could  possibly  portray.  Yet  once  more,  my 
brethren,  in  the  pure  spirit  of  brotherly  love,  let  me  solicit  your  atten 
tion  to  that  temperance  so  conspicuous  in  the  character  of  this  holy 
man,  that  it  is  the  first  feature  his  biograper  has  sketched.  No  vice 
within  our  observation  has  so  much  degraded  the  character  of 
Masonry,  none  has  made  such  wide-spread  ravage  in  the  world,  as 
the  odious  sin  of  intemperance ;  it  carries  its  annual  thousands  to  an 
untimely  grave,  and  an  unprepared  reckoning  with  their  final  Judge. 
What  renders  it  fearful  beyond  most  evil  habits,  is  the  strange  insen 
sibility  with  which  it  invests  its  unhappy  votary.  The  miserable  vic 
tim  of  confirmed  intemperance  is  cursed  with  a  fatuity  unassailable 
by  reason  or  admonition.  He  deliberately  prepares  himself  for  the 
sacrifice,  binds  himself  to  the  altar,  and  himself  applies  the  fatal 
instrument  of  immolation.  At  this  awful  period  every  vice  follows 
in  its  train,  reason  is  bewildered,  conscience  is  benumbed,  the  heart 
debased,  and  the  noblest  work  of  God  sinks  below  the  level  of  a 
brute.  This  fatal  habit  is  often,  nay,  it  is  usually,  the  offspring  of 
idleness  and  inattention  to  the  business  of  our  proper  vocation,  and 
that  too  frequently  in  the  season  of  youth.  Strange,  unaccountable 
stupidity !  At  that  happy  period  when  the  intellectual  powers  are 
expanding,  and  the  entire  character  beginning  to  assume  a  permanent 
form — in  that  delightful  season  of  improvement,  emulation  and  hope 
— how  many  waste  the  precious  years  without  one  vigorous  effort  in 
any  useful  or  valuable  pursuit.  Such  take  their  downward  course  in 
life,  barren  of  knowledge  or  virtuous  habits,  through  a  bleak  and 
comfortless  region  of  care,  decrepitude  and  sorrow.  Thus  a  whole 
lifetime  is  often  passed  over,  thoughtful  only  of  the  present  hour, 
till  the  brink  of  the  yawning  gulf  is  seen ;  but  then  it  is  too  late  to 
retreat  from  the  danger,  and  an  age  of  careless,  thoughtless  inac 
tivity  is  closed  by  a  few  hours  of  gloomy  anxiety — of  intense,  inef 
fable  horror.  This  is  not  the  fiction  of  imagination;  it  has  been 
often  realized  and  seen  among  us,  where  last  of  all  it  should  be 
looked  for,  within  the  circle  of  Masonry.  Nothing,  I  repeat  it,  has 
contributed  so  much  to  strengthen  the  common  prejudice  against 
Masonry,  and  impair  its  usefulness  in  the  world,  as  the  disorderly 
and  vicious  lives  of  some  of  its  members.  Wherever  such  are  found 
among  us,  it  is  our  first  duty  to  apply  all  the  correctives  our  princi 
ples  afford;  to  whisper  wholesome  counsel  into  the  ear,  and,  by 
every  means  in  our  power,  impress  truth  upon  the  heart. 


MASONIC    ORATION.  123 

If  all  these  fail  to  revive  the  dying  spark  of  virtue — to  our 
selves  and  the  world  we  owe  the  solemn  duty — they  must  be  cast  out 
from  among  us.  Such  can  only  serve  to  create  discord  in  the  tem 
ple,  and  impede  the  labors  of  the  true  and  worthy  Mason.  When 
we  reflect  on  the  many  bland  and  beautiful  persuasives  to  virtue 
which  our  ceremonies  exhibit,  and  which  our  lectures  unceasingly 
teach ;  when  we  superadd  to  these  those  guards  which  furnish  resist 
ance  to  every  approach  of  vice,  it  may  fairly  be  assumed  .that  none 
but  a  disposition  fatally  determined  to  wickedness  could  resist  their 
conjoined  impressions.  But  if,  in  despite  of  all  endeavor,  a  brother 
continue  incorrigible,  "cut  him  down,  why  cumbereth  he  the 
ground! " 

When  we  shall  have  thus  discharged  our  duty,  Masonry  shall 
arise  and  put  on  her  beautiful  garment;  her  doors  then  shall  be 
thrown  wide  for  the  reception  of  the  wise  and  faithful  in  heart  of  all 
the  tribes  and  kindred  of  the  earth,  and  be  closed  against  the 
wicked,  the  faithless  and  the  unworthy.  Then  may  we  confidently 
expect  our  reward.  We  shall  have  the  gratitude  of  the  destitute, 
whom  we  have  cheered  and  fed ;  the  prayers  of  the  wayward,  whom 
we  have  reclaimed ;  the  benedictions  of  the  good  of  all  the  world, 
and  the  smiles  of  an  approving  conscience,  that 

"Which  nothing  earthly  gives  or  can  destroy, 
The  soul's  calm  sunshine  and  the  heart-felt  joy." 

There  are  a  few  present  whom  I  recognize  as  worthy  Knights, 
who  have  sat  in  council  and  convened  in  the  Asylum.  We  should 
never  forget  this  truth ;  as  we  ascend  in  the  mysteries  of  the  Order, 
so  in  proportion  are  our  obligations  increased  and  the  sphere  of  our 
action  enlarged.  That  unbounded  hospitality  that  greets  and  cheers 
the  way-worn  pilgrim  of  this  world  with  pure  benevolence,  unsolic 
ited  and  unbought;  that  courage  and  constancy  which  tread  with 
untiring  step  the  rugged  road  of  virtue,  and  subdue  each  rising 
obstacle  in  their  way ;  that  humility  and  patience  which  melt  away 
the  natural  asperities  of  our  imperfect  nature,  and  endure  without  a 
murmur  the  "thousand  ills  of  life;"  that  truth  which  is  mighty 
above  all  things,  which  shall  flourish  in  immortal  green,  when  the 
heavens  "shall  depart  as  a  scroll,"  these  are  the  God-like  attributes 
of  your  profession.  The  history  of  your  Order  though  gloomy, 
nevertheless  presents  a  grand  exhibition  of  human  nature.  The  sen 
sation  we  feel  in  tracing  it  to  its  origin,  though  elevated  and  delight 
ful,  will  still  at  times  be  tinged  with  melancholy  reflection,  rendered 


124  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

sublime,  however,  by  the  magnificence  of  the  objects  constantly  in 
view. 

The  hardy  spirits  who  founded  your  Order  and  lighted  up  the 
sacred  asylum  in  Palestine,  were  fired  with  zeal  that  no  human  effort 
could  resist.  They  had  visited  that  land  consecrated  by  the  advent 
of  the  Messiah.  They  stood  upon  the  shores  of  Jordan  that  had 
seen  the  descent  of  the  Baptismal  dove.  They  sat  down  and  sor 
rowed  upon  those  hills  of  Judea  that  had  trembled  at  the  miracles  of 
a  God.  They  saw  with  bitterness  of  heart  the  pious  pilgrim  spurned, 
robbed,  murdered  by  the  ruthless  Turk.  They  beheld  the  stupid 
Mussulman  exert  a  withering  despotism  over  the  inheritance  of 
Jacob.  They  saw  the  mosque  and  minaret  tower  in  impious  grand 
eur  over  the  tomb  of  Christ,  and  the  chosen  habitation  of  Israel 
seemed  to  them  cursed  on  account  of  the  infidel  possessor.  The 
burning  sun  and  the  barren  fig  tree  of  holy  writ  were  still  there ; 
riven  rocks  and  half-open  sepulchers  still  announced  the  prodigies  of 
the  crucifixion ;  but  dried  up  rivers,  scorched  and  barren  fields  spoke 
to  them  the  course  of  heaven,  and  there  the  desert  stretched  out  its 
burning  arms  in  mute  desolation,  as  if  it  had  not  dared  to  break  the 
dead  silence  since  the  "Eternal  uttered  his  voice." 

It  was  amid  these  grand  and  gloomy  scenes  that  the  founders  of 
your  Order  called  the  council  and  assembled  around  the  triangle. 
Charity  and  hospitality  were  their  objects — a  charity  that  stooped  to 
the  unfortunate,  that  sought  after  the  miserable,  that  raised  the 
bowed  down,  that  clothed  and  fed  the  naked,  famishing  pilgrim, 
journeying  under  the  fervid  heat  of  a  Syrian  sun,  to  die  at  the 
Redeemer's  shrine,  These  were  the  original  characteristics  of 
Knighthood,  and  though  the  scene  of  action  is  now  changed,  such 
are  still  its  high  and  holy  professions.  To  this  high-toned  moral 
feeling  we  are  pledged  by  sacred  obligations  to  conform  our  practice 
among  men  and  with  each  other.  '  Tis  for  ourselves  to  determine 
whether  we  shall  profess  principles  which  exalt  and  sublimate  the 
soul  above  the  sordid  selfishness  of  groveling  mortality,  and  at  the 
same  time  cling  to  those  vices  that  degrade,  chill  and  brutalize  all 
the  generous  aspirings  of  the  heart.  Surely  it  will  not,  cannot  be ; 
honor,  conscience  and  truth,  "mighty  above  all  things,"  forbid  it. 

Lastly,  my  brethren,  of  every  order  and  degree.  If  the  duties 
of  Masonry  are  of  universal  obligation,  if  they  admit  of  no  excep 
tion,  if  they  are  to  be  performed  by  the  Mason  of  every  country, 
under  circumstances  however  adverse,  with  what  alacrity  should  we 


MASONIC    ORATION.  125 

(who  are  cradled  in  liberty,  and  nursed  in  the  lap  of  peace)  go  on 
to  fulfill  its  benignant  commands.  How  enviable  this  day  is  the  lot 
of  the  American  Mason,  compared  with  the  destiny  of  his  brethren 
in  other  regions  of  the  earth !  Here  the  Masonic  lodge  rears  its 
humble  columns  in  our  cities,  cottages  and  towns,  fearless  of  danger 
from  without,  or  treachery  within  its  walls.  When  we  go  abroad  on 
our  festive  days  the  unseen  arm  of  our  happy  government  protects 
us  from  insult  or  opposition.  The  "Star  and  stripe,"  the  consecrated 
banner  of  freedom,  is  proud  to  wave  its  protecting  folds  over  the 
lambskin  of  Masonry.  But  avert  your  eye  for  a  moment  from  this 
"green  and  sunny  spot,"  throw  your  anxious  glance  over  Russia, 
Austria  and  Spain.  Where  is  the  humble  Mason  in  these  dreary 
realms  to-day?  Roused  by  the  natal  morning  of  his  patron  saint, 
does  he  repair  with  crowds  of  his  brethren  to  the  social  lodge?  No. 
With  fearful  step  he  steals  silently  from  the  busy  haunts  of  men,  and 
with  a  faithful  few  ascends  the  mountain-top,  or  retires  to  the  darkest 
recess  of  some  sequestered  vale.  If  the  ever-vigilant  eye  of  oppres 
sion  pursue  him  there,  a  lingering  death,  "pangs  that  longest  rack 
and  latest  kill,"  must  be  his  fate;  or  exiled  from  home,  he  must  seek 
in  other  lands  a  refuge  from  the  grave: 

"  Nor  wife  nor  children  more  shall  he  behold, 
Nor  friends,  nor  sacred  home." 

How  often  have  we  hailed  on  these  happy  shores  a  Russian 
brother  from  the  far  Borysthenes,  or  from  the  bank  of  Guadalquiver, 
the  Iberian  exile,  and  heard  them  lisp  in  stranger  accent  the  sad 
story  of  their  wrongs.  From  these  we  hear  that  Masonry,  emphati 
cally  peaceful  and  unoffending,  is  proscribed  by  the  half-civilized 
"Autocrat  of  all  the  Russias. "  There  a  jealous  tyrant  exerts  his 
unceasing  persecution,  with  every  means  which  ingenuity,  sharpened 
by  malice,  can  invent,  and  with  cruelty  limited  only  by  absolute 
power.  In  Spain,  too,  once  the  proud  land  of  chivalry,  the  same 
misguided  policy  haunts  every  step  of  the  Order.  The  stupid  Ferdi 
nand  (whose  regal  honors  serve  only  to  degrade  the  fame  of  the 
once  powerful  Castilian  house)  dooms  our  temples  to  the  flames, 
and  for  inculcating  "charity  toward  all  mankind,"  the  Christian 
Mason  dies  upon  the  rack.  Fell  tyrant!  insatiate  monster!  gorge 
thy  ravening  appetite  with  the  harmless  Mason's  blood.  Well  hast 
thou  waged  exterminating  war  upon  the  brethren  of  him  whose  arm 
hurled  the  first  fatal  bolt  at  the  throne  of  tyrants.  It  was  the  spirit 


126  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

and  example  of  our  Washington  that  rolled  the  retributive  fires  of 
revolution  through  thy  affrighted  dominions.  But  thy  carnival  shall 
be  brief.  The  Architect  of  worlds  has  circumscribed  the  two  Ameri 
cas,  and  said,  "here  shall  there  be  liberty  and  peace."  Six  fair  repub 
lics,  wrested  from  they  ruthless  dominion,  announce  that  retributive 
justice  is  nigh  thee;  the  handwriting  is  seen  upon  thy  walls;  the 
genius  of  desolation  flaps  her  wing  over  thy  palaces  of  pride,  and 
expects  her  prey. 

Before  I  take  leave  of  you,  my  brethren,  let  me  again  remind 
you  of  the  vast  debt  of  gratutude  you  owe  to  the  Almighty  disposer 
of  human  events  for  that  you  have  been  permitted  to  pass  the  jour 
ney  of  life  in  this  land  and  this  age  of  the  world.  While  the  cloud 
of  despotism  throws  its  dun  and  troubled  midnight  over  three  quar 
ters  of  the  world,  here  we  repose  under  the  tranquil  bowers  of 
peace,  while  the  blended  beams  of  improved  science,  rational  liberty 
and  pure  religion  throw  their  cheerful  radiance  around.  May  we 
not  justly  exclaim  with  Israel  of  old,  "the  Lord  hath  brought  us 
forth  out  of  Egypt,  with  a  mighty  hand  and  an  outstretched  arm ; 
he  hath  brought  us  unto  this  place,  and  hath  given  us  this  land?" 
But,  if  we  believe  our  Masonic  instruction,  we  shall  not  indulge  the 
gloomy  conviction  that  our  happy  destiny  shall  always  remain  exclu 
sive.  Masonry  teaches  us  that  man  is  capable  of  endless  improve 
ment  in  knowledge  and  all  the  arts  that  adorn  and  glorify  human 
existence.  That  progression  is  evidently  quickening  its  pace 
throughout  the  world  with  each  revolving  year.  The  signs  of  the 
times  cannot  be  misunderstood.  The  onward  tread  of  science  and 
civil  liberty  cannot,  will  not,  be  stayed ;  it  is  the  progress  of  man  to 
that  state  designed  and  decreed  by  Heaven ;  it  is  the  march  of  mind 
— what  power  shall  withstand  it?  It  may  pause  for  awhile,  in  the 
midst  of  some  violent  shock,  but  it  will  resume  its  progress  with  still 
stronger  and  steadier  step,  till  ignorance  and  subjection  let  go  their 
hold  upon  every  slave,  and  the  scepter  fall  powerless  from  the  grasp 
of  the  last  tyrant  upon  the  earth.  Then  shall  that  period  arrive  so 
long  expected  and  so  ardently  prayed  for.  It  shall  then  no  longer 
be  necessary  to  the  existence  of  governments  to  consecrate  the 
names  and  vices  of  kings ;  but  human  happiness  shall  be  the  basis  of 
all  political  association,  and  enlightened  reason  insure  a  cheerful 
acquiescence  in  necessary  municipal  rule.  Then  shall  the  eastern 
Indian  cease  to  adore  the  sun ;  the  northern  savage  no  longer  shall 
seek  his  deity  in  the  genius  of  darkness  and  storm  ;  the  Hindoo  shall 


MASONIC    ORATION.  127 

forget  to  bow  before  Juggernaut,  and  the  Abyssinian  no  more  shall 
pour  out  his  libation  to  the  genius  of  the  Nile,  but  the  enlightened 
devotions  of  a  world  shall  ascend  to  the  true  God.  Then  shall  the 
"cap-stone"  to  the  temple  of  human  happiness  "be  brought  forth 
with  shouting  and  praise." 

In  this  great  consummation  human  means  must  be  employed; 
ours,  therefore,  is  not  the  part  of  inaction  and  sloth ;  we  are  not  to 
be  indulged  in  folded  hands  and  quiet  sleep.  However  humble  the 
effort,  still  that  effort  must  be  made — duty  requires  it,  and  her 
injunctions  will  not  be  disobeyed  with  impunity.  If  but  one  stone 
be  prepared  by  each,  it  will  contribute  to  the  building,  and  rest 
assured,  the  laborer  shall  receive  his  reward.  Let  us  then  grasp  the 
plumb  in  one  hand  and  see  that  we  stand  erect  before  God  and  man, 
while  with  the  mystic  trowel  in  the  other,  we  spread  everywhere  the 
cement  of  brotherly  love.  Then,  when  we  shall  all  be  leveled  by 
death,  and  tyled  in  the  grand  lodge  of  eternity;  when  the  "pass 
word  "  shall  be  demanded  for  the  last  time,  we  may  approach  with 
some  humble  confidence  and  say,  in  language  of  the  pious  sacrifices 
of  the  first  fruits,  "I  have  brought  away  the  hallowed  things  out  of 
mine  house  and  have  given  them  to  the  Levite  and  stranger,  unto 
the  fatherless  and  the  widow,  according  to  all  the  commandments 
which  thou  hast  commanded  me,  I  have  not  transgressed  thy  com 
mandments,  neither  have  I  forgotten  them." 


ADDRESS  OF  WELCOME  TO  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS. 


AT  LEBANON,   OHIO,   NOVEMBER    7,  1843. 


IN  November,  1843,  ex-President  J.  Q.  Adams  delivered  the  address  at  the  laying 
of  the  corner  stone  of  the  Cincinnati  Observatory  on  a  hill  near  the  city  which  was 
named  in  his  honor,  Mt.  Adams.  The  citizens  of  Lebanon  learned  that  the  ex-Pres 
ident  on  his  journey  to  Cincinnati  would  reach  their  village  at  noon  and  remain  over 
night.  They  made  elaborate  preparations  for  his  reception,  and  selected  ex-Governor 
Corwin  to  deliver  the  address  of  welcome.  The  exercises  took  place  at  the  Baptist 
Church.  The  following  are  the  remarks  of  Mr.  Corwin: 

Mr.  Adams:  My  neighbors,  citizens  of  this  town  and  the  sur 
rounding  country,  have  devolved  on  me  the  very  agreeable  duty 
of  greeting  your  arrival  amongst  them ;  of  tendering  to  you  their 
admiration  of  your  character,  and  the  gratitude  they  owe  you,  for 
the  many  deeds  of  eminent  patriotism  that  have  distinguished  your 
long,  laborious  and  eventful  life. 

Although  personally  unknown  to  them,  the  history  of  your  life 
has  been  so  interwoven  with  their  interests  and  happiness  as  to  ren 
der  your  name  familiar  as  a  household  word.  Be  assured,  sir,  that 
your  fame  is  cherished  with  as  much  sincerity  in  this  small  village 
as  it  is  at  your  home  in  Quincy.  Your  character  as  a  scholar,  an 
orator,  a  statesman,  and  patriot,  is  regarded  with  as  much  veneration 
in  the  Miami  Valley  as  it  is  or  can  be  on  the  banks  of  the  Merrimac. 

Whilst  we  here  claim  to  share  in  common  with  our  fellow-citi 
zens  of  the  Union  our  portion  of  that  true  glory  which  you  have 
bequeathed  to  the  Republic,  we  feel  that  your  present  visit  to  the 
West  has  created  between  yourself  and  us  relations  of  a  more  inti 
mate  character. 

At  an  advanced  period  of  your  life,  in  the  midst  of  a  public 
career,  and  at  an  inclement  season  of  the  year,  you  have  encoun 
tered  the  toil  and  peril  of  a  long  journey  for  our  benefit  and  at  our 
solicitation.  It  is  this  act,  thus  performed,  which  blends  in  the 

bosoms  of  the  multitudes,  that  now  surround  you,  mingled  feelings  of 

(128) 


ADDRESS    OF    WELCOME    TO    JOHN    QUINCY    ADAMS.  129 

love  for  the  man,  gratitude  to  the  philanthropist,  lofty  sentiments  of 
respect  for  those  remarkable  intellectual  endowments  that  have  justly 
established  your  rank  amongst  the  first  minds  of  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury.  You  come  to  us  not  to  spread  discord,  but  to  inculcate  har 
mony.  You  come  from  your  distant  home  in  the  East  to  plant 
with  your  own  hands  the  seeds  of  science  and  an  improved  philoso 
phy  in  these  Western  ends  of  the  earth.  You  come  asking  nothing 
from  us,  bringing  much  to  us;  like  the  sun  in  his  course  from  east 
to  west,  you  bring  warmth  to  animate  and  light  to  cheer  and  guide 
us  onward ;  you  come  to  this  great,  new  and  comparatively  unculti 
vated  "seed  field,"  spread  out  from  the  Alleghany  to  the  Rocky 
mountains,  to  scatter  abroad  amongst  us  the  gathered  fruits  of  a  long 
life  of  painful  study ;  to  give  us  the  benefit  of  that  mature  wisdom 
derived  from  your  varied  experience  amongst  men,  in  all  their 
varieties  of  country  and  condition;  you  come  to  diffuse  light  and 
dispel  darkness ;  you  come  to  point  to  us  our  pathway  through  the 
heavens,  and  place  in  our  hands  the  lights  kindled  by  Kepler,  and 
Newton,  and  Bowditch,  and  La  Place.  For  these  imperishable  gifts 
we  offer  you  all  that  you  would  receive,  our  thanks  and  our  pray 
ers,  that  health  and  happiness  may  attend  you  through  life,  and  the 
blessings  of  the  good  and  the  wise  hallow  your  memory  through 
all  future  time. 

It  was  a  sad  and  venerable  maxim  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  "that 
no  man  should  be  accounted  happy  till  after  death."  However 
true  this  may  have  been,  in  the  stormy  periods  of  these  brilliant 
Republics  of  old,  or  however  true  it  may  now  be  in  general,  you, 
sir,  must  have  seen  enough,  in  your  journey  hither,  to  satisfy  you 
that  yours  will  form  at  least  one  exception  to  that  dark  destiny 
which  has  but  too  often  fallen  upon  the  great  benefactors  of  man 
kind. 

But,  sir,  this  is  not  a  time,  nor  an  occasion,  to  recount  the  past, 
or  to  anticipate  that  judgment  which  the  future  shall  pronounce 
upon  the  present.  My  humble  but  welcome  task  is  performed  when, 
on  behalf  of  these  my  friends  and  neighbors,  I  bid  you  welcome  to 
the  West — welcome  to  Ohio — welcome  to  this  village — welcome  to 
these  people — welcome  to  the  best  affections  of  their  hearts. 

10 


IN  DEFENSE  OF  JUDGE  McLEAN. 


Mr.  FOOTE,  of  Mississippi,  at  the  conclusion  of  his  remaks,  by  way  of  personal 
explanation,  in  the  United  States  Senate,  on  January  23,  1849,  read  an  extract  from 
"  Councils,  Civil  and  Moral,  of  Sir  Francis  Bacon,"  which  he  commended  to  his  honor 
JUSTICE  McLEAN,  who  had  the  day  before  published  a  card  in  the  National  Intelligen 
cer  correcting  a  misrepresentation  of  certain  of  his  letters  written  the  preceding  year. 
This  extract,  Mr.  FOOTE  remarked,  contained  "valuable  hints"  from  which  he  hoped 
JUDGE  McLEAN  would  profit — among  others  the  following:  "Judges  ought  to  be 
more  learned  than  witty,  more  reverend  than  plausible,  and  more  advised  than  confi 
dent;  above  all  things,  integrity  is  their  portion  and  proper  virtue." 

Mr.  CORWIN'S  remarks  sufficiently  explain  the  nature  and  purpose  of  the  accusa 
tion  against  JUDGE  McLEAN.  Mr.  CORWIN  said: 

I  do  not  rise,  Mr.  President,  to  interrupt  further  the  ordinary 
course  of  business  by  the  prolongation  of  this  interlude  at  all,  but 
only  to  acquit  myself  from  a  sort  of  imputation  which  the  Senator 
from  Mississippi  has  pleased  to  cast  upon  me. 

Here  Mr.  FOOTE  disclaimed  any  intention  to  cast  an  imputation  upon  him. 

Mr.  President,  I  dare  say,  from  the  apparent  personal  address 
which  the  Senator  from  Mississippi  made  to  me,  as  one  who  did  not 
choose  to  rise  here  in  defense  of  Judge  McLean  upon  the  accusation 
presented  by  that  gentleman  the  other  day,  that  he  would  have  it 
inferred — at  least  others  might  infer — that  I,  by  my  silence,  was 
yielding  my  acquiescence  or  agreement  to  the  views  taken  by  him  of 
those  two  fugitive  letters,  out  of  which  this  grave  charge  has  been 
manufactured. 

I  did  not  think  it  worth  while,  the  other  day,  when  the  Senator 
from  Mississippi,  on  a  motion  to  amend  a  post-office  bill,  took  this 
view  of  the  conduct  of  my  friend,  Judge  McLean,  to  say  one  word 
in  his  defense,  for  with  the  utmost  deference  in  the  world  to  the  opin 
ions  then  and  now  expressed  by  the  Senator  from  Mississippi,  I  did 
not  perceive  that,  with  the  facts  before  the  public,  it  was  possible 
for  his  remarks  to  cast  in  any  mind,  other  than  one  very  much  like 
his  own  on  particular  subjects,  the  slightest  imputation  whatever  on 

the  purity  of  character  or  the  judicial  rectitude  of  Judge  McLean. 

(130) 


DEFENSE    OF    JUDGE    MCLEAN.  131 

All  that  I  could  perceive  in  the  matter  brought  forth  by  the  Senator 
from  Mississippi  was  the  expression  of  an  opinion  upon  two  sub 
jects,  about  which  everybody  knows  there  has  been  a  very  great  con 
trariety  of  opinion  in  this  country.  Judge  McLean,  in  a  letter  to 
some  friend,  who  had  evidently  written  to  him  on  the  subject,  wish 
ing  to  know  his  opinions  on  that  great  political  question — the  origin 
and  conduct  of  the  Mexican  war — had  expressed  his  views  in  rela 
tion  to  the  matter  upon  which  he  was  interrogated.  It  may  be  pos 
sible  he  may  be  mistaken.  In  the  minds  of  that  class  of  politicians 
who  agree  with  the  Senator  from  Mississippi  upon  the  subject,  Judge 
McLean  may  have  been  considered  in  error  in  regard  to  the  origin 
of  the  Mexican  war,  and  the  means  which,  in  his  judgment,  should 
be  applied  to  bring  it  to  a  speedy  and  honorable  termination.  But 
is  it  possible  that  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  is  to  be  a  court  of 
error  upon  the  preferment  of  a  charge  by  any  one,  either  in  a  news 
paper  or  here,  to  correct  the  political  opinions  of  a  judge  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  who,  on  being  interrogated  by  one  of  his  fellow-cit 
izens  in  a  letter,  ventures  to  express  his  views  upon  one  of  these 
much  agitated  topics?  I  could  not  conceive  that  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States  or  the  people  of  the  United  States,  could  expect  that 
a  man,  because  he  happens  to  hold  the  highly-respectable  and  re 
sponsible  station  of  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  can  have  no  opinion  in  common  with  his  fellow-men  upon  a 
subject  that  has  called  forth  the  expression  of  feeling  and  opinions 
from  almost  every  citizen  of  the  republic.  I  do  not  conceive  that, 
because  the  ermine  to  which  the  Senator  has  so  emphatically  alluded 
is  upon  his  shoulders,  his  tongue  is  therefore  ever  to  be  silent.  He 
is  entitled  to  a  vote,  in  common  with  every  man  in  the  Republic, 
for  a  President,  for  a  member  of  Congress,  and  of  course  he  must 
exercise  his  own  judgment  upon  such  subjects  with  other  men,  and 
I  had  supposed  that  such  exercise  of  his  judgment,  and  expression 
of  it  too,  would  be  tolerated  by  his  fellow-citizens. 

Mr.  President,  Judge  McLean  has  said  in  a  letter  to  somebody 
( and  I  really  do  not  know  to  whom  the  letter  was  addressed,  nor 
did  I  apprehend  exactly  its  purport  when  alluded  to  the  other  day 
by^  the  Senator  from  Mississippi )  that  he  supposes  Slavery  was  not 
considered  as  having  an  existence  in  any  country  until  its  existence 
was  established  by  a  law.  For  that  I  understand  the  Senator  from 
Mississippi  thinks  that  Judge  McLean  is  in  some  degree  culpable. 
Well,  now,  it  seems  that  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 


132  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

have,  in  effect,  so  decided,  and  Judge  McLean  has  referred  to  the 
decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  which,  in  his  judgment,  establishes 
this  question  of  law.  He  has  commented  upon  the  decision  of  the 
court  which  has  thus  adjudicated  the  question,  and  I  ask  if  it  can  be 
possibly  manufactured  into  judicial  impropriety  for  a  judge  of  the 
Supreme  Court  to  repeat  what  are  the  acknowledged  decisions  of 
that  Court?  I  ask  if  it  is  likely  that  the  people  of  this  country, 
who  have  very  long  and  very  properly  reposed  great  confidence  in 
Judge  McLean  in  various  positions,  political  as  well  as  judicial,  can 
be  brought  to  believe  him  guilty  of  moral  turpitude  for  such  an  act? 

Mr.  FOOTE  here  interposed  a  suggestion  that  the  subject  upon  which  Judge 
McLean  had  expressed  his  opinion  in  the  letter  complained  of  is  yet  an  open  question, 
and  undecided  in  the  aspect  given  t'o  it,  by  any  court.  He  alluded  to  the  arguments 
of  distinguished  jurists  in  the  Senate,  who  co-operated  in  the  Compromise  Bill  of  the 
previous  session,  to  show  that  such  were  their  views,  and  that  the  question  had  never 
been  adjudicated,  and  it  was  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that  it  would  be  likely  to  come 
before  Judge  McLean  for  adjudication  that  the  latter  thought  proper  to  pronounce  his 
opinion.  This  he  challenged  Mr.  CORWIN  to  "deny"  or  "  vindicate"  if  he  could. 

I  thought  that  question  was  settled  before  the  date  at  which 
this  letter  was  written. 

Mr.  FOOTE. — I  stated  the  other  day  that  the  bill,  although  defeated  at  the  last 
session,  would  probably  be  revived  during  this  session  and  passed. 

I  do  not  remember  whether  that  bill,  to  which  the  gentleman 
from  Mississippi  has  alluded,  called  the  Compromise  Bill,  had  gone 
to  its  grave  before  this  letter  was  written  by  Judge  McLean  or  not, 
nor  do  I  think  it  material. 

Judge  McLean  has  only  ventured  to  express,  in  relation  to  the 
subject  of  Slavery,  what  is  the  prevailing  professional  opinion  in  that 
circuit  in  which  he  resides.  I  am  sure  I  am  not  mistaken  in  this, 
and  I  dare  say  the  Senator  from  Mississippi  knows  it  also.  I  do  not 
intend,  Mr.  President,  to  enter  into  a  controversy  here  in  relation  to 
the  correctness  of  that  opinion.  I  will  only  add  to  the  high  author 
ity  of  Judge  McLean  upon  that  subject  one  other — that  of  my  own. 
I  dare  say  the  Senator  from  Mississippi  will  consider  that  as  settling 
the  question.  That  will  be  respected  I  hope.  It  is  my  opinion,  and 
I  have  not  been  able  to  gather  from  Blackstone's  Commentaries  any 
thing  to  the  contrary.  I  know  that  there  are  few,  very  few,  high 
authorities  differing  from  Judge  McLean  and  myself  on  that  point. 
But  if  that  be  the  fact,  does  it  necessarily  follow,  Mr.  President, 
when  Judge  McLean  is  merely  so  unfortunate  as  to  differ  from  the 
Senator  from  Mississippi,  and  other  gentlemen  of  the  highest  profes- 


DEFENSE    OF    JUDGE    MCLEAN.  133 

sional  respectability  in  the  country,  that  he  is  therefore  unfit  to  pre 
side  in  the  circuit  north-west  of  the  Ohio  river,  or  sit  upon  the  bench 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  ?  I  ask  the  Senator  from 
Mississippi  in  all  candor  if  it  would,  under  such  circumstances,  be 
quite  fair  to  arraign  in  some  sort  as  criminal  the  conduct  of  a  man 
for  the  mere  expression  of  his  opinion  upon  a  mooted  question  of 
law?  Why,  sir,  if  this  were  to  be  the  rule  by  which  we  would  try 
the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court,  we  should  have  to  expel  two  or 
three  of  them  from  the  bench  at  every  term.  They  have  their  books 
of  reports  full  of  dissenting  opinions. 

I  know  the  Senator  from  Mississippi  feels  much  upon  this  sub 
ject.  I  dare  say  he  is  anxious  to  preserve  the  judicial  purity  of  the 
bench.  But  while  he  is  guarding  us  on  this  vital  point — and  all 
must  give  high  commendation  to  the  motive  which  governs  him  in 
this — would  it  not  be  well  for  the  grave  Senators  who  sit  here  and 
listen  to  these  accusations,  which  can  result  in  nothing  but  recrimi 
nation,  to  remember  that  we,  too,  under  certain  circumstances,  should 
be  enrobed  in  this  sacred  and  inviolable  purple,  and  that  it  would  be 
well  for  us  not  to  prejudge  any  question  which  may  possibly  come 
before  us.  If  Judge  McLean  has  done  anything  unworthy  of  his 
judicial  character,  and  worthy  our  notice  at  all,  then  I  think  he  has 
done  that  which  ought  to  bring  him  before  us  on  an  impeachment. 
How,  then,  would  the  Senator  from  Mississippi,  with  his  judicial 
gravity,  backed  by  Bacon  and  Cicero,  appear?  I  am  afraid  that 
some  here  did  not  quite  understand  the  gentleman's  Latin,  and  I  beg 
the  Senator  to  translate  it  for  the  benefit  of  country  gentlemen  like 
myself.  How  should  we  look  with  the  ermine  on  our  shoulders,  if 
Judge  McLean  were  here  on  trial?  We  should,  doubtless,  strut 
through  the  scene  with  senatorial  dignity,  having  prejudged  the 
cause  at  the  instance  of  the  Senator  from  Mississippi.  I  dare  say 
the  Senator  from  Mississippi  would  sit  and  adjudicate  too  upon  this 
very  question  which  he  had  himself  already  prejudged.  I  do  not 
mention  this  because  I  suppose  it  possible  for  any  one  to  conceive 
for  a  moment  of  the  existence  of  an  impeachment  against  this  excel 
lent  gentleman  for  anything  contained  in  his  letters  declining  to 
become  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  unless,  indeed,  you  impeach 
a  man  for  the  rarest  of  all  qualities,  modesty.  I  do  not  know  but 
the  exhibition,  or  even  possession  of  that  quality,  may  be  by  some 
gentlemen  considered  a  crime,  but  I  do  not  think  there  is  anything 


134  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

in  Bacon  or  Cicero  that  would  warrant  us  in  taking  off  the  head  of 
the  judge  for  his  exhibition  of  this  amiable  frailty. 

I  do  not  know,  and  I  will  not  venture  to  state,  further  than  on 
the  authority  of  Judge  McLean  himself — and  I  read  his  letter  very 
hastily — that  the  Supreme  Court  have  decided  this  very  question ; 
but  I  think  a  fair  interpretation  of  the  judgment  of  the  Supreme 
Court  in  the  case  of  Rhodes  and  Slaughter,  referred  to  by  Judge 
McLean,  would  warrant  him  in  saying  that  they  had  decided  a  prop 
osition  from  which  it  is  deducible  that  Slavery  is  a  matter  of  munic 
ipal  legislation,  and  could  not  exist  without  it.  But  he  is  not  infalli 
ble — he  may  be  mistaken.  I  wish  he  was  infallible.  I  wish  others, 
Mr.  President,  that  I  will  not  name,  were  so  too. 

But  I  must  say  to  the  Senator  from  Mississippi,  what  I  dare  say 
he  may  have  known,  or  heard  of,  that  if  it  is  supposed  that  the  pro 
duction  of  these  letters,  or  any  possible  inference  that  can  be  drawn 
from  them,  will  shake  the  confidence  of  those  who  have  known 
Judge  McLean  personally  during  his  whole  political  and  judicial  life, 
that  all  who  indulge  in  this  belief  will  find  themselves  (as  mortal 
men  often  are )  sadly  mistaken.  It  will  not  be  believed  that  a  man 
who  has  passed  through  the  stations  which  he  has  filled,  with  so  lit 
tle  exception  ever  taken  to  his  public  conduct,  has,  at  this  period  of 
his  life,  gone  so  far  astray  as  to  forfeit  the  good  opinion  of  his  fel 
low-citizens  in  that  place  which  he  has  occupied  with  so  much  honor 
to  himself,  and,  I  will  venture  to  say,  with  so  much  usefulness  to  the 
country,  which  he  has  so  faithfully  served  for  twenty  years. 

Mr.  President,  let  me  again  state  that  I  do  not  rise  to  present 
the  slightest  objection  to  the  expression  of  the  views  the  Senator 
from  Mississippi  takes,  knowing  that  they  are  honestly  his  own  pecu 
liar  views.  Nor  do  I  object  in  the  slightest  degree  to  his  promulga 
ting  his  opinions  of  Judge  McLean,  or  any  other  judge,  at  all  times, 
and  on  all  occasions,  anywhere  and  everywhere,  but  I  felt  myself 
compelled,  representing,  as  I  do,  in  part,  the  State  in  which  Judge 
McLean  has  resided  during  the  whole  of  his  mature  life,  to  say 
thus  much,  lest  my  friends  might  suppose  (as  the  Senator  from  Mis 
sissippi,  I  suppose,  did )  that  I  silently  acquiesced  in  the  justness  of 
his  remarks  on  this  and  a  former  occasion. 


ON   THE    ACTION    OF    OHIO    TOUCHING 
FUGITIVE    SLAVES. 


PENDING  the  discussion  of  the  Slavery  question  in  the  United  States  Senate,  April 
3,  1850,  upon  the  resolutions  submitted  by  Mr.  BELL,  which  Mr.  FOOTE  moved  to  be 
referred  to  a  committee  of  thirteen  (Mr.  UNDERWOOD,  of  Kentucky,  having  con 
cluded),  Mr.  CORWIN  and  Mr.  FOOTE  rose  together,  Mr.  CORWIN  asked: 

Will  the  Senator  from  Mississippi  yield  me  the  floor  a  few  min 
utes,  for  the  purpose  of  explaining  a  point  in  the  laws  of  Ohio, 
referred  to  by  the  Senator  from  Kentucky? 

Mr.  FOOTE  yielded  the  floor. 

Mr.  President,  the  Senator  from  Kentucky  has  been  pleased  to 
animadvert  with  some  severity  upon  the  legislation  of  Ohio  touching 
fugitive  slaves.  I  am  satisfied  if  my  friend  from  Kentucky  would 
review  carefully  what  has  been  done  on  this  subject  by  the  Legisla 
ture  of  Ohio  he  would  find  reason  to  retract  a  portion  of  his 
remarks,  and  certainly  to  abate  much  of  that  asperity  of  feeling 
which  his  mistaken  views  have  inspired.  I  only  desire  to  occupy 
the  Senate  a  moment,  while  I  correct  what  I  deem  a  mistake  as  to 
the  constitutional  character  of  the  law,  said  by  the  Senator  from 
Kentucky  to  have  been  revived  by  the  statute  of  1843.  This  act  of 
1843  repealed  the  celebrated  act  passed,  as  we  know,  by  the  Ohio 
Legislature,  at  the  instance  of  commissioners,  Messrs.  Morehead  and 
Smith,  appointed  by  the  authorities  of  Kentucky.  The  law  of  1839, 
passed  at  the  instance  of  the  Kentucky  commissioners,  provided 
against  kidnapping  among  other  things.  - 

Sir,  if  the  provisions  of  the  act,  which  was  revived  by  the  law 
of  1843,  were  just  such  as  the  gentleman  has  represented,  I  will  not 
pretend  to  say  here,  without  examination,  whether  they  were  or 
were  not  constitutional.  The  law  of  1843  was,  at  that  time,  the 
only  law  in  Ohio  providing  against  kidnapping.  When  that  law  was 
repealed,  it  was  necessary  to  re-enact  the  old  or  a  similar  law  against 

the  very  common  offense  of  kidnapping.     To  this  end  a  law  which 

(135) 


136  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

had  been  very  long  in  force,  and  which  had  been  suspended  by  the 
act  of  1843,  was  revived.  I  have  not  this  revived  law  before  me, 
but  I  believe  it  was  simply  an  act  making  it  penal  to  take  by  force 
out  of  the  State  any  free  man,  black  or  white.  Such  laws,  I  imagine, 
or  laws  very  similar,  may  be  found  on  the  statute  books  of  many  if 
not  all  the  States.  Now,  Mr.  President,  if  the  act  revived  does,  as 
the  gentleman  supposes,  contain  a  provision  forbidding  the  seizure  of 
any  colored  person,  under  any  pretense,  without  warrant  first 
obtained,  and  was  therefore  unconstitutional,  and  an  infraction  of 
the  rights  of  slaveholders,  then  the  celebrated  act  of  1839,  passed 
at  the  instance  of  Kentucky,  by  her  commissioners,  Smith  and 
Morehead,  was  also  unconstitutional ;  for  I  am  very  sure  it  contained 
a  provision  making  it  a  penitentiary  offense  for  any  person  to  seize  a 
colored  man  until  he  should  first  obtain  process  for  that  purpose 
from  a  judicial  officer. 

Sir,  we  hear  loud  complaints  of  the  revived  Ohio  law,  such  as 
that  it  disturbed  the  fraternal  relations  of  Ohio  and  Kentucky.  It 
was  just  what  Kentucky  herself  had  asked,  and  agreed  to  in  the 
celebrated  act  of  1839.  By  that  law,  if  a  Kentuckian  laid  his  hand 
on  a  black  man  in  Ohio,  to  arrest  him  as  a  slave,  without  first  filing 
an  affidavit  and  obtaining  a  warrant,  he  must  go  to  the  Ohio  peni 
tentiary.  These,  sir,  were  the  terms  fixed  by  treaty  between  the 
two  States;  these  were  the  happy,  peaceful,  fraternal  relations 
of  the  two  States  as  settled  by  themselves.  Sir,  it  seems  to  me,  if 
the  present  law  of  Ohio  against  kidnapping  be  unconstitutional,  she 
(Kentucky)  has  no  right  to  complain,  since  she  herself  asked  for 
and  agreed  to  the  same  provision  in  the  act  of  1839. 

Mr.  President,  this  is  a  matter  of  small  significance,  it  is  true ; 
but  it  is  well  to  settle  the  matter  of  history  aright  before  it  finds 
its  way  into  Greeley's  Almanac,  so  that  posterity  may  not  be 
deceived.  I  will  only  add,  sir,  that  whatever  the  letter  of  our  laws 
may  have  been,  I  have  never  known  or  heard  of  a  case  in  Ohio 
where  any  person  was  punished  for  arresting  a  slave  under  any  cir 
cumstances,  where  the  person  charged  could  prove  that  he  was  really 
the  owner,  or  agent  of  the  owner,  of  such  slave. 


ON  THE  BILL  FOR  THE  RELIEF  OF  WM.  DARBY. 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  SENATE  APRIL  23,  1850. 


THIS  bill  proposed  to  give  the  venerable  author  of  "DARBY'S  GAZETTEER" 
the  sum  of  $1,50x3  for  the  use  of  a  map  prepared  from  materials  collected  by  Mr.  Darby 
while  acting  in  the  capacity  of  a  deputy  surveyor  for  the  Government.  Mr.  Darby 
was  then  of  very  advanced  age,  in  humble  circumstances,  subsisting  upon  the  salary  of 
a  clerkship  of  the  lowest  grade  in  the  Government.  Mr.  CORWIN  observed: 

This  application  was  referred  to  a  select  committee,  of  which  I 
happened  to  be  chairman  at  the  time,  and  the  report  from  it,  just 
read,  was  prepared  by  myself.  Now  I  agree  with  the  Senator  [  MR. 
TURNER],  who  has  just  taken  his  seat,  that  there  is  no  legal  claim 
presented  here,  but  I  cannot  agree  with  him  that  there  is  not  an  equi 
table  claim,  and  just  such  an  equitable  claim,  I  imagine,  as  has  been 
repeatedly  recognized  by  both  branches  of  Congress.  The  map 
mentioned,  and  upon  which  the  memorial  and  claim  are  based,  was 
made  upon  the  individual  researches  and  labors  of  the  memorialist 
at  a  very  early  period  of  time  and  before,  I  believe,  the  cession  of 
Louisiana  was  ascertained,  and  it  has  since  been,  in  every  treaty 
which  the  Government  has  chosen  to  make  respecting  our  boundary 
in  that  quarter,  the  basis  upon  which  that  treaty  has  proceeded. 
Now,  does  it  appear  to  the  Senate  that  any  other  person  has  done 
the  same  thing  ?  Does  it  appear  to  the  Senate  that  these  labors  of 
Mr.  Darby  have  been  of  real  value  to  the  Government  and  people  of 
the  United  States,  and  that  no  other  person's  labor  has  furnished 
those  materials  which  this  Government  has  availed  itself  of,  from 
time  to  time,  in  settling  those  questions  that  have  been  often  the 
subject  of  discussion,  and  of  very  deep  interest,  concerning  our 
boundaries,  arising  out  of  the  treaty  of  the  cession  of  Louisiana? 
In  these  matters,  as  every  one  is  aware,  that  has  been  the  map  upon 
which  every  treaty  has  been  regulated.  The  materials  for  it  were 

furnished  at  his  own  expense,  and  by  labors  which  very  few  are  will- 
CIS?) 


138  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

ing  to  encounter.  It  is  true,  the  main  object  of  them  was  the  grati 
fication  of  his  own  curiosity,  if  you  please,  for  every  one  who 
knows  anything  of  the  history  of  this  man,  knows  that  he  has  been 
all  his  life  engaged  in  these  matters,  and  that  he  is  a  gentleman  of 
uncommon  endowments.  Of  these  qualities  and  labors  of  the  man 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  have  availed  themselves  in  the 
way  in  which  reference  has  been  made.  Suppose  that  Mr.  Darby, 
instead  of  ascertaining  the  boundaries  of  the  territories  in  that  quar 
ter,  and  furnishing  this  information,  had  gone  with  a  company  of 
men,  one  of  these  pioneer  expeditions  of  which  we  have  heard,  and 
driven  off  the  Indians,  elevated  the  American  flag,  and  established 
the  American  power  on  his  own  responsibility  and  at  his  own  ex 
pense,  in  a  country  which  at  last  should  come  into  the  possession  of 
the  United  States.  Then,  if  Mr.  Darby  presented  a  memorial, 
showing  at  what  great  expense  he  had  marched  through  the  country, 
and  established  the  flag  of  the  United  States  where  it  had  not  before 
been  known,  and  carried  the  American  eagle  into  lands  where  it  had 
never  soared  before,  and  killed  several  Indians,  perhaps,  all  of  which 
the  Government  had  availed  itself  of,  how  many  sections  of  land 
would  you  give  him  ?  How  many  sections  of  land  have  you  given 
for  such  services  ?  How  many  propositions  now  lie  on  your  table  of 
such  a  character  ?  Now,  the  country  derives  benefit  from  all  this. 
The  one  is  the  achievement  of  gunpower,  and  the  other  of  science, 
for  your  benefit,  and  not  merely  for  your  benefit,  but  for  the  benefit 
of  all  men.  Now,  by  these  facts  which  he  has  collected,  and  by 
these  labors,  of  which  you  have  availed  yourself,  you  have  been 
benefited,  and  yet  you  have  never  paid  Mr.  Darby  for  them.  What 
is  equity,  I  beg  to  know,  as  contradistinguished  for  legal  obligations? 
Here  is  work  and  labor  done  of  which  you  have  had  the  benefit,  and 
there  (pointing  to  the  bill)  is  the  bill  of  particulars,  sir,  and  why 
not  give  him  compensation  therefor? 

Senator  DAWSON  here  remarked,  "We  will  pass  it." 

Very  well,  then,  I  have  nothing  more  to  say. 


AGAINST  CORPORAL  PUNISHMENT. 

IN  the  House  of  Representatives  in  the  General  Assembly  of  the  State  of  Ohio, 
December  18,  1822,  upon  the  bill  to  introduce  public,  whipping. as  a  punishment  for 
pettylarceny,  MR.  CORWIN  addressed  the  Committee  of  the  Whole  as  follows : 

MR.  CHAIRMAN: 

I  never  rise  to  offer  my  opinions  to  this  House  without  feeling 
a  powerful  impression  of  the  many  embarrassments  which  I  am 
obliged  to  encounter.  This,  sir,  does  not  originate  from  a  servile 
dread  of  your  criticism,  or  the  consequences  of  declaring  thus  pub 
licly  and  to  the  world  the  honest  convictions  of  my  heart.  No,  sir, 
it  arises  from  a  more  natural  and  a  more  honorable  cause ;  it  proceeds 
from  that  deference  which  is  due,  and  which  we  almost  instinctively 
pay  to  age  and  experience,  and  a  consciousness  that  I  am  wasting 
the  time  of  this  House  in  vain,  when  opposing  my  arguments  and 
judgment  to  the  wplj-fnrmed  and  authoritative  opinions  of  my  vener 
able  friends.  Under  these  circumstances,  I  do  assure  this  committee 
I  should  have  considered  my  duty  discharged  by  a  silent  vote  upon 
this  bill,  had  not  my  professional  pursuits  frequently  compelled  me 
to  give  a  careful  and  often  painful  examination  to  most  of  the  sub 
jects  involved  in  its  policy. 

In  the  prosecution  and  sometimes  in  the  defense  of  criminals,  I 
have  had  frequent  opportunities  of  viewing  and  considering  the  oc- 
cult  and  secret  sources  of  crime  more  distinctly  than  I  possibly 
could  had  I  been  an  unconcerned  observer.  J^will  venture  to  assert  & 
that  there  is  not,  in  the  whole  circle  of  society,  a  situation  so  favor 
able  to  the  discovery  of  the  true  nature  and  causes  of  crime  as  a 
practice  at  the  bar  of  a  court  of  criminal  jurisdiction.  There  you 
may  behold,  as  from  an  eminence,  the  whole  area  over  which  we  are 
now  about  to  pass.  Here  you  see  one  class  of  mankind,  whose  orbit  /' 
seems  to  have  been  fixed  and  revolutions  all  performed  within  the ' 
regions  of  vice.  Others  again,  of  more  equivocal  character,  who, 

without  any  settled  system  of  action  or  determining  force  of  dispo- 

(139) 


140  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

sition,  have  been  impelled  forward  in  a  wild  and  eccentric  direction, 
and  occasionally  and  accidentally  passed  within  the  hemisphere  of 
crime.  With  these  advantages,  I  \vould  hope  not  entirely  unim 
proved,  I  have  formed  an  opinion  on  the  subject  opposed  to  the 
principles  of  this  bill,  which  all  the  very  able  and  ingenious  argu 
ments  of  the  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  have  not  induced  me  to 
relinquish.  I  shall  not  differ  with  the  gentleman  from  Highland 
[MR.  COLLINS]  as  to  the  great  objects  of  criminal  law.  By  impos 
ing  certain  penalties  upon  the  commission  of  specified  offenses,  it  is 
intended  to  reform  the  convicted  culprit,  and  by  the  example  of  his 
punishment  to  frighten  others  from  the  yet  untrodden  paths  of  in 
iquity;  and  thus,  by  operating  upon  that  principle  common, to  all,  an 
aversion  to  pain  and  privation,  excite  in  the  mind  a  thorough  abhor- 
ence  of  the  crime  which  is  thus  necessarily  connected  with  misery. 
All  these  point  to  the  great  and  primal  object  of  both  divine  and  hu 
man  government — the  preservation  of  right,  and  the  promotion  of 
human  happiness.  The  scourge,  uplifted  by  the  first  section  of  the 
bill,  is  brought  fonvard  as  an  auxiliary  in  this  great  and  benevolent 
work.  About  the  ends  to  be  accomplished  there  can  be  no  differ 
ence  of  opinion — the  adaptation  of  this  instrument  to  the  accom 
plishment  of  these  ends  is  the  only  subject  of  dispute.  But,  sir, 
when  we  consider  the  variety  of  considerations  necessarily  connected, 
with  the  subject  of  crime  and  its  punishment,  and  that  each  of  these 
is  to  be  carefully  weighed  in  the  balance  of  judgment,  and  the  proper 
weight  and  value  assigned  to  each,  before  a  correct  result  can  be 
had,  it  is  not  surprising  there  should  exist  an  honest  difference  of 
opinion  as  to  the  means  by  which  the  grand  object  in  view  is  most 
ikely  to  be  insured. 

I  am  satisfied,  if  the  gentlemen  who  advocate  this  bill  would  ex 
amine  themselves  closely,  they  would  find  that  considerations  very 
remotely  connected  with  the  true  principles  of  criminal  jurispru 
dence  have  contributed  very  powerfully  to  the  establishment  of 
their  present  opinion.  I  am  confirmed  in  this  belief  by  the  reiter 
ated  arguments  of  the  friends^of  the  bill,  drawn  from  the  expensive- 
ness  of  the  system  at  present  in  force.  Your_present  mode  of  pun- 
' 'ishment,  say  they,  must  be  abolished;  the  expense  is  intolerable, 
and  can  no  longer  be  borne  by  the  counties.  Let  us  examine  then, 
for  a  moment,  this  argument  and  see  whether  its  intrinsic  weight  is 
such  as  to  give  it  the  first  rank  among  the  reasons  for  abolishing  the 
old  and  adopting  the  new  law  now  proposed.  It  will  be  admitted, 


AGAINST    CORPORAL    PUNISHMENT.  141 

that  the  first  and  main  designs  in  adopting  any  system  of  criminal 
law,  are  to  reform  the  criminal,  and  by  his  punishment  to  deter 
others  from  imitating  his  conduct  and  committing  similar  crimes. 

This  admission  is  sufficient  of  itself  to  show  the  comparative 
weakness  of  all  arguments  which  proceed  from  a  calculation  of  costs,  r 
It  surelyjrequires  no  argument  to  prove  that  the-  money  expended 
in  procuring  the  punishment  itself  can  have  no  effect  in.  producing 
those  consequences,  for  the  sake  of  which  you  are  alone  warranted  i 
in  passing  any  law  upon  the  subject ;  that  is,  the  reformation  of  the  - 
culprit,  and  the  security  of  your  right  by  holding  out  the  terror  of 
his  example  to  others.  For  instance,  would  a  post  and  whip,  which 
should  cost  five  hundred  dollars,  have  an  effect  upon  the  criminal  or 
society  in  any  respect  different  from  one  equally  strong  and  power 
ful,  used  in  the  same  manner,  which  should  not  cost  the  tenth  part 
of  that  sum?  The  punishment  is  alike  severe  in  both  cases;  the 
effect  upon  the  criminal  himself  and  upon  those  who  witness  his 
punishment  would  be  precisely  the  same  in  the  former  case,  which 
costs  five  hundred,  as  in  the  latter,  which  costs  fifty  dollars.  If  the 
price  at  which  the  punishment  can  be  procured  is  the  first  and  most 
important  consideration,  then  the  gentlemen,  to  be  consistent,  should 
abandon  the  measure  now  proposed,  for  many  systems  of  punish 
ment  may  be  devised,  much  cheaper  than  even  the  swift  and  sum 
mary  vengeance  of  the  whipping-post  and  scourge.  This  view  of 
the  subject  may  enable  us  to  form  something  like  a  correct  estimate 
of  the  argument  of  expense  so  long  and  so  frequently  urged.  Still, 
sir,  I  would  not  be  understood  to  argue  that  in  the  enactment  of  a 
law  of  this  kind,  we  should  pay  no  regard  to  the  expense  which  will 
be  incurred  in  carrying  that  law  into  effect;  but  I  would  show  by 
these  remarks  that  this  argument  can  only  be  made  effectual,  when 
it  is  proved  in  support  of  it  that  the  operation  of  the  law  is  so  ex 
pensive  as  to  bear  no  reasonable  proportion  to  the  good  effects  re 
sulting  from  it. 

There  are  some  among  us,  I  believe,  who  are  in  favor  of  the 
bill  upon  the  table,  who  are,  nevertheless,  of  opinion  that  fine  or  im 
prisonment  is  a  punishment  more  appropriate  to  the  crimes  we  are 
enacting  upon.  They  tell  us  they  detest  and  abhor  the  vile  and 
bloody  instruments  with  which  they  propose  to  arm  our  courts,  and 
that  they  do  not  expect  their  property  will  find  a  more  efficient  pro 
tection  from  these  agents  than  it  has  formerly  experienced  from  fine 
and  imprisonment ;  that  they  are  willing  to  adopt  a  law  which  they 


142  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    COR  WIN. 

believe  to  be  wrong  and  impolitic,  with  the  hope  of  .reducing  the 
taxes,  and  relieving  the  existing  burdens  of  the  people.  Sir,  the 
people  have  required  no  such  sacrifice  at  your  hands;  they  have  not. 
petitioned  you  for  relief;  they  have  not  prayed  you  to  redeem  them 
from  this  grievous  oppression  —  "this  Egyptian  yoke."  Gentlemen 
have  mistaken  the  clamors  of  a  few  selfish  individuals  for  the  voice 
of  the  State.  If  it  were  true,  as  has  been  represented,  that  the 
cries  of  the  State  had  resounded  from  one  extremity  of  it  to  the 
other,  they  would  have  been  heard  within  these  walls  in  the  constitu 
tional  mode;  youj;  tables  would  have  groaned  beneath  the  weight 
of  their  petitions.  The  people,  sir,  are  not  idle  or  inattentive'  to 
their  interest,  nor  are  they  so  selfish  or  avaricious  as  to  sacrifice  the 
general  interest,  honor  and  prosperity  to  such  sordid  and  pecu 
niary  considerations.  Ask  yourselves  the  question,  would  you  not 
rather  sacrifice  the  pitiful  sum  that  would  be  drawn  from  your  own 
pockets  to  pay  this  item  of  expense  in  the  administration  of  the  law, 
than  to  introduce  these  ornaments  of  the  slave-driver  into  your  tem 
ples  of  justice  ? 

The  whipping-post  and  the  lash  are  indeed  beautiful  appendages 
to  the  public  buildings  of  your  counties,  and  when  the  traveler,  at 
tracted  to  your  shores  by  the  fame  of  your  unexampled  growth  in 
everything  which  marks  the  character  of  a  great  and  enlightened 
State,  shall  inquire  of  you  the  use  of  that  post  which  occupies  a  sta 
tion  so  commanding  among  the  public  buildings  of  Ohio,  what  an- 
t  I  swer  will  you  give?  You  must  tell  him  the  truth;  and  you  may 
V  inform  him  that  it  is  a  deity  that  is  worshiped  by  the  seven  hundred 
thousand  inhabitants  of  Ohio  ;  that  his  peculiar  attributes  and  qual 
ities  are  a  love  of  money  and  a  thirst  insatiable  for  human  blood  ; 
that  his  voracious  stomach  is  regularly,  three  times  a  year,  gorged 
with  his  favorite  drink,  drawn  from  the  veins  of  your  citizens  by  the 
application  of  whips  and  scourges.  Complete  the  story  if  you  can, 
and  tell  him  that  for  this  he  saves  in  your  pocket  from  five  to  ten 
cents  a  year.  But,  sir,  I  will  dismiss  this  point,  and  proceed  to  con 
sider  what  is  in  truth  a  much  more  important  branch  of  the  present 
subject  —  the  nature  and  effect  of  the  punishment  itself.  The  dis 
pute  now  is  between  the  stripes  on  the  bare  back,  as  proposed  in 
this  bill,  and  the  fine  and  imprisonment  of  the  old  law.  In  the 
view  which  I  propose  to  take,  in  a  few  words,  of  these  two  modes 
of  punishment,  it  will  be  necessary  to  keep  steadily  in  our  sight  the 
nature  and  character  of  the  person  upon  whom  the  punishment  is  to 


AGAINST    CORPORAL    PUNISHMENT.  143 

act,  and  the  ends  to  be  accomplished  by  its  infliction.  Here  I  would 
use  the  very  instance  produced  by  the  gentleman  from  Highland  in 
support  of  the  bill,  guided  by  the  unerring  laws  of  human  nature. 
Let  us  test  this  example,  and  let  experience  decide  whether  the  con-  , 
elusion  I  shall  draw  be  true  or  false.  Let  then  the  person  be  an  old 
offender,  hackneyed  and  trained  in  the  ways  of  wickedness ;  by  an  , 
habitual  communion  with  depravity  his  sense  of  shame  is  destroyed 
and  his  love  of  reputation  extinguished ;  his  crimes  shall  have  fixed  '' 
upon  him  the  abhorrence  of  all  who  knew  him,  and  broken  every  tie 
which  once  held  him  in  a  state  of  social  existence.  Such  a  being,  it 
is  argued,  can  only  be  punished  by  the  infliction  of  stripes;  the 
blunted  sensibilities  of  such  a  wretch,  it  is  said,  can  only  be  roused 
and  acted  upon  by  the  tremendous  apparatus  of  vengeance,  furnished 
forth  in  the  first  section  of  the  bill.  This,  sir,  is  a  conclusion  which 
I  cannot  admit;  my  mind  directs  me  to  a  result  directly  opposed  to 
the  one  at  which  my  friend  has  arrived.  I  shall  very  readily  admit, 
sir,  that  persons  may  be  found  approximating  very  nearly  at  least 
to  the  character  described.  Suppose  him  bound  and  fettered  to  the 
whipping-post;  imagine,  if  you  please,  all  the  playmates  of  his  child 
hood,  the  companions  of  his  youth,  and  the  graver  acquaintances  of 
his  riper  years,  to  be  present  surrounding  the  place  of  his  supposed 
disgracejmd  punishment.  What,  sir,  to  such  a  being  as  we  have  im 
agined  would  this  be.  or  what  effect  would  it  have?  Would  he  be 

o          -  ^ /   

overwhelmed  and  dismayed  at  the  frown  and  disdain  of  the  multi 
tude  ?  No,  sir,  aware  of  this,  he  would  arm  himself  with  triple  insen 
sibility.  Lost  to  all  sense  of  shame,  he  looks  upon  their  scorn 
and  abhorrence  with  muscles  unmoved,  or  a  smile  of  contempt. 
Bankrupt  in  character  and  with  no  desire  to  redeem  a  ruined  reputa 
tion,  he  looks  forward  to  their  future  detestation  as  a  thing  with 
which  he  has  long  been  familiar,  and  about  which  he  is  utterly  indif 
ferent.  The  whip,  then,  as  the  gentlemen  have  argued,  is  the  only 
possible  enemy  with  which  he  is  to  contend — he  has  nothing  more  to 
arm  himself  against  but  the  lash.  The  surrounding  multitude,  all  the 
parade  and  preparation  of  the  scene,  are  idle  pageantry  to  him ;  and 
if  he  can  but  harden  his  nerves,  and  fortify  his  flesh  with  the  proper 
degree  of  insensibility,  he  can  endure  with  equal  stoicism  and  uncon 
cern  the  severest  corporal  pain  that  human  ingenuity  can  invent,  or 
human  power  inflict.  If  it  can  be  shown  that  man,  when  it  is  neces 
sary,  and  when  properly  schooled  for  the  purpose,  can  endure  with 
comparative  ease  the  severest  corporal  pain,  then  I  think  it  is  fair  to 


144  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

conclude  that  this  would  be  the  case  in  the  instance  before  us.  Be 
assured,  the  old  and  well-practiced  criminal  has  not  been  such  a  care 
less  observer  of  human  events  as  not  to  have  anticipated  the  proba 
bility  of  punishment  and  prepared  for  its  arrival,  and  when  he  sees 
the  bustling  and  eager  crowd  assembled  for  the  very  purpose  of  be 
holding  his  humiliation  and  feasting  upon  his  torment,  you  need  not 
be  surprised  if  all  the  energies  of  his  depraved  and  hardy  nature 
were  called  into  action  to  disappoint  the  still  more  brutal  expecta 
tions  and  desires  of  the  mob. 

Hard  as  this  triumph  of  our  nature  over  pain,  its  natural  enemy, 
may  seem,  thousands  of  examples  could  be  produced  to  prove  it  an 
object  of  easy  acquisition.  Look  to  the  history  of  the  Indian  tribes 
of  America,  when  the  vanquished  warrior  unfortunately  survives  a 
battle  in  which  his  tribe  has  been  beaten  and  himself  made  prisoner. 
The  conquest  is  not  complete  until  the  victor  chief  has  exerted  his 
system  of  torture  upon  the  captive.  The  excellence  of  this  scheme 
of  cruelty  is  made  to  exist  in  the  length  of  time  it  will  continue  its 
severity  without  destroying  the  sensibility  of  the  victim.  Yet  such 
is  the  power  of  human  nature,  when  fully  exerted,  that  malice,  when 
she  has  exhausted  all  her  invention,  is  often  disappointed  of  her 
wish,  and  obliged,  at  last,  to  behold  the  unconquered  son  of  the  des 
ert  .standing  amid  his  torments  with  as  much  ease  as  if  he.  were  re 
posing  upon  his  own  native  hills,  breathing  the  fragrance  of  the  wild 
flowers  of  the  desert,  and  surrounded  with  all  that  could  soothe  the 
soul  and  gratify  the  sense. 

So  it  will  be  with  the  old,  the  stern  and  obdurate  malefactor. 
It  would  be  found  impossible  to  inflict  stripes  upon  him  with  such 
severity  as  to  produce  any  effect  upon  him  at  the  time ;  of  course,  as 
to  himself,  the  effect,  if  any,  must  cease  to  operate  the  moment  he  is 
discharged.  But,  sir,  what  impression  will  those  receive  who  witness 
this  impotent  attempt?  The  answer  is  obvious.  The  abhorrence  of 
his  crime,  and  the  terror  of  its  punishment  are  all  lost  and  forgotten 
in  the  admiration  created  by  the  fortitude  and  indifference  of  the  cul 
prit  under  the  influence  of  the  scourge ;  and  the  whole  transaction 
leaves  no  impression  upon  the  mind  of  the  beholder,  except  that  he 
had  witnessed  an  unavailing  attempt  by  an  officer  to  inflict  a  severe 
punishment  upon  a  convicted  villain,  who  obstinately  and  triumph 
antly  resisted  all  his  power.  Loose  your  criminal  from  the  post,  and 
in  an  hour  after  all  this  has  happened  you  shall  find  him  celebrating 
his  victory  in  drunken  revelry  with  his  licentious  companions. 


AGAINST    CORPORAL    PUNISHMENT.  145 

But,  sir,  it  does  by  no  means  follow  that  there  is  no  punishment 
which  can  have  the  wished-for  effect.  Yes,  there  is  a  punishment  by 
which  he  may  be  made  to  suffer;  meet  him,  oppose  him  in  the  very 
principle  which  prompts  and  urges  him  to  the  perpetration  of  crimes. 
A  love  of  abandoned  company  and  an  aversion  to  the  labor  and  con 
finement  of  honest  pursuits  have  impelled  him  to  seek  a  livelihood 
in  violation  of  your  laws.  Let  him  know,  then,  that  in  the  pursuits 
of  his  favorite  enjoyments  the  moment  he  passes  the  prescribed  lim 
its  of  the  law  he  shall  forfeit  the  very  boon  he  seeks.  -  ^K^w  frj 
that  he  must  exchange  his  wild  and  erratic  independence  for  the 
chains  and  bolts  of  a  prison ;  that  his  favorite  companions  must  be 
forsaken  for  the  deep  solitude  and  ten-fold  horrors  of  a  dungeon. 
Here  he  shall  be  deprived  of  the  wild  and  spirit-stirring  pleasures 
which  enabled  him  to  avoid  reflection  upon  his  crime.  If  it  be  pos 
sible,  by  human  agency,  to  reform  and  punish  a  being  such  as  I  have 
described,  they  are  to  be  expected  under  circumstances  like  these ; 
cut  off  from  all  his  once  loved  pursuits,  and  deprived  of  all  external 
objects  of  reflection,  he  is  compelled  to  commune  with  his  own 
mind.  The  sounding  scourge  and  hissing  snakes  of  his  offended  con 
science  drive  him,  in  desperation,  to  that  open  sepulcher — the  naked 
human  heart.  Then,  and  then  only,  does  the  conscious  mind  be 
come  its  own  awful  world,  and  the  hardened  wretch,  that  a  short  time 
before  bid  defiance  to  all  the  terrors  of  penal  justice,  now,  alone  and 
subdued,  cowers  and  sinks  under  the  weight  of  her  retributive  ven 
geance. 

"In  pangs  that  longest  rack  and  latest  kill." 

Surely,  if  there  be  punishment  against  which  our  nature  can  op 
pose  no  adaquate  force;  if  there  be  terrors  which  can  arrest  the 
hand  of  wickedness  in  the  half  executed  crime,  they  are  to  be  found 
in  the  darkness  and  loneliness  of  solitary  confinement — in  the  dun 
geons  of  a  jail.  WtX 

Now,  sir,  let  us  turn  for  a  moment  to  another  and  very  differ 
ent  character,  but  one  who  may  often  be  the  subject  of  that  pujjish- 
ment  now  proposed  for  our  adoption.  He  shall  be  one  who  has 
acted,  not  from  a  fixed  and  resolute  disregard  of  moral  obligation  or 
social  duty,  but  rather  from  a  thoughtless  impetuosity  of  disposition, 
which  frequently  hurries  men,  otherwise  virtuous  and  honorable,  to 
the  commission  of  crime.  He  may  be  one  who  has  acted  under  a 
strong  and  imperious  necessity.  I  will  suppose  him  to  be  a  young 
man.  He  may  be  the  pride  and  only  hope  of  his  humble  but  re- 
11 


146  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

spectable  parents;  but,  in  an  ungarded  moment,  or  under  the  influ 
ence  of  strong  and  uncontrollable  necessity,  he  has  done  a  deed 
which  brings  him  to  the  whipping-post.  Need  I  pursue  this  descrip 
tion  further?  Need  I  ask  the  venerable  gentlemen  to  place  them 
selves  in  the  situation  of  such  a  father?  Is  there  a  man  upon  this 
floor  who  could  see  the  back  of  such  a  stripling  bared  to  the  inhu 
man  scourge?  No,  there  is  not  one;  the  mover  of  this  bill  could  not; 
its  best  friends  could  not  endure  such  a  sight.  Where,  then,  is  the 
influence  of  an  example  which  none  can  behold-r— which  no  father 
would  permit  his  children  to  see ;  or  what  kind  of  law,  I  ask,  is  this 
which  in  its  operation  violates  and  outrages  the  first,  the  original,  the 
best,  the  fairest  attributes  of  our  nature  ?  If  the  sheriff  should  do  his 
duty  on  such  an  occasion,  he  would  bring  down  upon  him  the  execra 
tion  of  all  who  knew  him ;  if  he  fails  in  his  duty,  the  law  is  a  mock 
ery  and  its  administration  a  farce.  What  effect  will  this  have  upon 
the  offender  himself?  Will  he  be  reformed  by  your  punishment? 
No,  no  one  will  pretend  it;  because  it  is  a  kind  of  punishment  cal 
culated  to  stimulate  the  angry  and  vindictive  feelings  of  the  soul, 
and  not  to  subdue  the  depravityof  the  heart.  Loose  your  victim, 
and,  again  driven  out  from  among  men,  he  goes  forth  a  desperado, 
a  wretch,  prepared  "to  war  with  men  and  forfeit  heaven." 

There  are  many  other  views  which  might  be  taken  of  this  sub 
ject  against  the  policy  of  the  law,  but  I  fear  I  shall  weary  the  pa 
tience  of  the  committee.  There  are,  however,  some  further  objec 
tions  to  this  bill,  which,  in  justice  to  my  own  feelings,  I  cannot  omit. 
All  writers  on  the  subject  of  criminal  law  agree,  and  the  common 
sense  of  every  man  will  confirm  the  opinion,  that  the  certainty  of 
punishment  should  be  regarded  more  than  any  other  consideration, 
in  the  enactment  of  a  criminal  code.  Will  this  grand  primary  object 
be  obtained  by  the  passage  of  this  bill?  I  answer  it  will  not.  If 
you  tell  me  this  punishment  is  more  severe  than  fine  and  imprison 
ment,  and  therefore  preferable,  I  answer  that  in  proportion  as  you 
increase  the  severity  of  the  punishment,  so  in  proportion  do  you  di 
minish  the  certainty  of  its  infliction ;  courts  will  be  more  scrupulous 
and  technical  in  motions  to  arrest  judgments  and  to  quash  indict 
ments  ;  juries  will  not  convict  for  an  offense  so  readily  where  the 
punishment  is  cruel,  as  when  it  is  more  lenient.  Here  again  I  must 
^appeal  to  the  experience  of  every  gentleman  who  has  been  at  all  con 
versant  with  the  courts  of  justice  for  the  truth  of  this  remark.  But, 
sir,  there  is  a  better  reason  than  this.  I  still  believe  that  public 


AGAINST    CORPORAL    PUNISHMENT.  147 

opinion  revolts  at  the  idea  of  this  species  of  punishment,  and  I  will 
defy  any  man,  however  strong  and  cogent  the  proof  may  be,  to  pro 
duce  a  conviction,  in  five  cases  in  ten,  where  the  punishment  conse 
quent  upon  the  verdict  is  odious  and  detestable  to  the  jury.  Your 
offenders  would  here  see  the  opinion  and  sympathies  of  the  whole 
community  perpetually  engaged  in  their  behalf,  and  acquittals  would 
take  place  where  guilt  was  manifest.  Thus,  sir,  is  the  first  great  con 
sideration  (a  moral  certainty  that  punishment  must  and  will  succeed 
crime )  lost  sight  of  in  the  bill.  This  is  of  the  very  last  importance 
— crime  and  punishment,  in  the  administration  of  justice,  should  be 
linked  together  like  cause  and  effect.  But  they  are  disjoined  far  as 
the  poles  from  each  other,  and  a  conviction,  with  many  juries,  would 
be  almost  beyond  the  limits  of  probability.  But  I  am  told  there  is 
a  saving  alternative  for  these  cases ;  the  court  may  whip,  fine,  or  im 
prison,  or  all,  if  they  choose.  I  answer,  juries  will  not  trust  their 
verdict  to  the  mercy  of  the  court.  They  will  argue  thus:  "We  may, 
by  finding  the  defendant  guilty,  be  the  means  of  carrying  him  to  the 
whipping-post ;  we  cannot  tell  what  the  court  may  do ;  we  will  rather 
acquit  than  risk  the  consequences  which  may  follow  a  conviction." 

This  alternative,  which  the  gentlemen  resort  to  as  the  salvation  of 
the  bill,  is  to  my  mind  one  of  its  most  objectionable  features.  It  is  a 
fact  well  known,  that  some  counties  in  the  State  will  never,  under 
any  circumstances,  resort  to  the  whipping-post  while  they  have  any 
alternative  left;  it  is  equally  certain  that  in  some  circuits  you  would 
seldom  hear  of  fine  and  imprisonment,  and  all  would  be  whipped. 
In  this  way  we  should  produce  this  strange  phenomenon  in  jurispru 
dence  ;  a  general  law  made  for  the  whole  State  alike,  operating  in  one 
part  of  the  State  in  a  way  and  with  tendencies  widely  different  from 
its  operation  in  another  part  of  the  same  State.  If  it  be  true  as  con 
tended,  that  the  whipping-post  is  to  moralize,  reform,  and  Christian 
ize  wherever  it  goes,  and  if  it  be  true  that  the  present  system  encour 
ages  vice,  frauds,  and  pampers  crimes,  what  kind  of  population  shall 
we  have  in  Ohio  ?  Where  whipping  prevails,  we  shall  behold  a  pious 
race,  strictly  observant  of  all  the  mandates  of  the  decalogue,  and  full 
of  the  wisdom  that  "exalteth  a  nation."  But  where  fine  and  impris 
onment  are  the  punishment,  vice,  unbridled  and  lawless,  must  riot 
upon  the  peace  of  the  country,  cursed  with  all  the  crimes  that  are  a 
"reproach  to  any  people."  There  will  be  in  the  circuit  protected  by 
the  whipping-post  none  but  Israelties  without  guile ;  pass  but  an  ideal 
boundary,  and  in  the  adjoining  district  now  you  have  but  devils  in- 


148  SPEECHES    OP   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

carnate.  This  motley  and  discordant  population  must  be  the  result 
of  the  operation  of  this  law,  if  there  be  that  wonderful  difference  in 
the  modes  of  punishment  which  is  contended  by  the  friends  of  the  bill. 

Permit  me,  sir,  to  ask  one  question  more,  and  I  have  done. 
Under  the  administration  of  the  old  law,  have  we  not  experienced  all 
the  good  order  and  social  peace  that  can  be  expected  in  the  best  reg 
ulated  society;  has  there,  since  the  adoption  of  that  system,  which  is 
I  believe  about  six  years,  been  an  increase  of  crime  beyond  the  in 
crease  of  population?  There  has  not.  Who  can  or  will  deny  this? 
But,  sir,  if  there  had  been,  it  might  be  accounted  for  upon  principles 
different  from  those  which  grow  out  of  an  insufficient  law  upon  the 
subject  of  crimes.  Within  the  time  I  have  named,  a  regular  army 
has  been  disbanded  and  let  loose  among  us;  all  that  was  vicious, 
depraved,  and  licentious  in  that  army  has  been  poured  in  upon  us 
and  mingled  its  corruptions  with  the  elements  of  society.  Yet  with 
all  this  to  contend  with,  your  old  law  has  struggled  through  the 
conflict,  faithful,  efficient  and  adequate  to  the  purposes  of  its  crea 
tion.  Do  not  suppose  that  I  am  detracting  from  the  merits  of  the 
brave  men  who  sustained  their  country's  honor  glorious  and  untar 
nished  throughout  the  struggle  to  which  I  have  alluded.  No,  sir; 
I  believe  they  would  have  carried  your  eagle  in  triumph  round  the 
globe  had  they  been  commanded  to  do  so ;  yet,  sir,  the  melancholy 
truth  is  still  the  same.  The  army  is  not  a  school  of  morality ;  it  is 
not  a  place  where  the  peaceful  virtues  are  taught  or  practiced.  Let 
it  not  be  forgotten,  that  this  very  kind  of  punishment  has  been  dis 
used  and  forbidden  in  the  armies  of  a  Bonaparte. 

Yet  this  fugitive  from  the  dominions  of  a  military  despotism  is 
to  be  naturalized  and  made  a  citizen  of  Ohio.  I  will  present  one  case 
for  the  consideration  of  the  military  gentlemen  of  the  house.  Sup 
pose  an  old  soldier,  with  whom  you  had  fought  and  bled,  should  be 
come  the  subject  of  this  punishment ;  unused  to  the  arts  and  avoca 
tions  of  peace,  he  has  stolen  a  trifle,  and  is  brought  to  the  post. 
While  stripping  for  the  sacrifice,  should  you  behold  upon  his  rough 
and  manly  bosom  the  scars  which  speak  of  his  bloody  and  heroic 
deeds  at  Orleans,  at  Chippewa,  or  at  the  Thames,  is  there  an  Amer 
ican  arm  that  could  be  raised  against  him?  If  there  be  such  a 
wretch  he  must  have  a  heart  harder  than  adamant,  lower  than  perdi 
tion,  blacker  than  despair.  Sir,  I  must  sit  down.  I  ought,  perhaps, 
to  pursue  the  subject  further,  but  I  must  give  place  to  those  whose 
years  entitle  them  to  a  greater  share  of  the  indulgence  of  this  House. 


ON  THE  PUBLIC  DEPOSITS. 


In  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States,  Friday,  April  4,  1834, 
the  order  of  the  day,  for  the  first  hour,  was  the  consideration  of  the  Resolution  of 
MR.  MARSDEN,  of  Alabama,  proposing  that  the  public  deposits  should  remain  in  the 
State  Banks ;  but  that  Congress  should  have  the  selection  and  regulation  of  the  banks 
in  which  they  are  to  be  placed.  On  this  subject  MR.  CORWIN  had  the  floor,  and  ad 
dressed  the  House  until  the  expiration  of  the  hour.  On  Friday,  April  nth,  the  same 
question  coming  up  as  the  unfinished  business  of  the  first  hour,  he  resumed  and  con 
tinued  to  the  expiration  of  the  hour,  and  on  the  following  morning  he  concluded  his 
remarks. 

MR.  SPEAKER: 

I  feel  sensibly  the  very  awkward  and  embarrassing  relations  that 
have  subsisted  between  speakers  and  their  audience  in  this  House 
during  the  last  six  weeks  of  this  important  and  protracted  discussion. 
He  who  has  at  any  time  been  so  fortunate  as  to  obtain  the  floor,  sees 
that  he  occupies  a  position  which  many  others  around  him  have 
sought  with  unavailing  effect.  Those  around  him,  on  the  other  hand, 
feel  as  if  they  had  been  deprived  by  another  of  a  right  which  they 
all  possess  in  common  with  him,  while  the  daily  threat  of  the  major 
ity  to  silence  debate  by  a  call  of  the  previous  question,  gives  just 
cause  to  fear  that  the  right  of  themselves  and  those  they  represent  to 
be  heard  in  this  House  on  subjects  affecting  deeply  their  interests  will 
be  finally  denied  them. 

I  cannot  say,  with  the  honorable  gentleman  from  New  Jersey 
[MR.  DICKERSON],  that  I  have  been  instructed  to  speak  on  this  sub 
ject,  yet  I  can  assure  the  House  that  its  manifest  impatience  of 
further  discussion  would  induce  me  still  to  observe  a  silence  which  I 
have  rigidly  maintained  for  nearly  three  sessions  of  Congress,  did  I 
not  feel  myself  impelled  to  a  different  course  by  obligations  which  I 
can  no  longer  disregard.  My  judgment  does  not  approve,  nor  do 
my  feelings  participate  in  that  anxiety  which  has  been  expressed  to 
bring  this  discussion  to  a  close.  It  should  not  be  matter  of  surprise 

to  any  one  that  this  subject  has  for  three  months  engrossed  the  atten- 

(149) 


150  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

tion  of  Congress  to  the  exclusion  of  almost  every  other.  Its  magni 
tude  should  exclude  all  precipitation  when  it  is  approached,  and  ad 
monish  us  to  delay  and  ponder  well  before  we  decide.  It  involves 
great  principles,  which  all  must  see  lie  deep  in  the  foundations  of  our 
political  organization ;  it  ranges  over  a  vast  field  of  constitutional  law ; 
it  comprehends  many  of  the  most  interesting  rights  of  the  citizen — 
rights  which  until  now  have  always  been  supposed  to  be  included 
within  the  unquestioned  legislative  powers  of  Congress. 

When  we  reflect  that  everything  valuable  to  civil  liberty,  all 
those  maxims  of  good  government  which  are  so  happily  combined  in 
our  written  Constitutions,  have  been  purchased  at  the  expense  of 
blood  and  revolutionary  strife,  or  wrought  out  into  their  present  shape 
through  long  ages  of  trial  and  painful  experience,  common  prudence 
should  suggest  great  deliberation  in  any  attempt  to  destroy  or  re-ad 
just  their  established  order.  It  should  not  be  expected  that  the  dear 
est  rights  of  the  citizen,  and  the  most  important  duties  and  powers 
of  the  legislator,  are  to  be  discussed  here  with  that  sort  of  inconsid 
erate  haste  which  may  be  tolerated  in  matters  of  small  or  temporary 
concernment,  but  which  true  wisdom  never  indulges  when  we  are 
dealing  with  those  great  interests  which  come  to  us  by  inheritance 
from  the  past,  which  are  the  birthright  of  the  present,  and  the  best 
hope  of  future  generations. 

I  am  sure  I  do  not  overrate  the  importance  of  this  discussion. 
The  deep  excitement  felt  here,  in  minds  habitually  cool,  temperate, 
and  even  phlegmatic,  proves  that  I  do  not.  The  excitation  of  the 
public  mind  proves  to  you  that  I  do  not  magnify  its  importance.  Do 
we  want  proofs  of  this?  Look  abroad  over  this  wide  continent. 
Three  months  ago  it  was  seen  agitating  the  surface  like  the  tremu 
lous  premonitions  of  the  coming  earthquake;  now  it  is  rocking  so 
ciety  to  Jts  foundations.  The  heavings  of  this  fearful  convulsion 
have  torn  from  their  accustomed  walks  and  natural  positions,  and  pre 
cipitated  into  one  mass  in  a  neighboring  city  forty  thousand  of  our 
citizens,  each  calling  upon  the  other  for  counsel  and  co-operation. 
From  the  populous  cities  on  your  Atlantic  frontier,  where  the  first 
ripple  of  discontent  was  seen,  the  wave  has  swollen  until  it  burst  like 
a  deluge  over  the  mountains,  carrying  discontent  and  alarm  through 
the  peaceful  valleys  of  the  great  west,  inhabited  by  the  most  patient, 
temperate  and  quiet  population  anywhere  to  be  found  on  the  face  of 
the  earth.  Ominous  as  this  excitement  may  appear  to  some,  I  can 
not  regret  its  existence.  Though  the  storm  that  lowers  upon  our 


ON    THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS.  151 

hitherto  unclouded  horizon  be  dark,  I  feel  an  assured  confidence  that 
its  thunders,  when  they  do  burst,  will  roll  to  save,  not  to  destroy. 
It  gives  cheering  proof  that  the  spirit  of  our  fathers,  that  '  'augured 
misgovernment  at  a  distance,  and  snuffed  the  approach  of  tyranny  in 
every  tainted  gale,"  is  not  extinguished  in  the  bosoms  of  their  sons. 

In  the  notice  I  shall  take  of  the  causes  that  have  produced  such 
striking  and  interesting  effects,  I  do  not  intend  to  fatigue  the  patience 
of  gentlemen  by  any  examination  of  the  great  elementary  and  con 
stitutional  principles  which  belong  to  this  subject.  These  I  shall  con 
sider  as  settled.  Others,  to  whom  I  have  listened  with  feelings  of 
pride  and  delight  which  I  cannot  soon  forget,  have  left  upon  this  part 
of  the  canvass  their  own  bright  and  indelible  impressions  of  reason 
and  truth — impressions  which  any  touch  from  my  unpracticed  hand 
could  not  illustrate,  but,  on  the  contrary,  would  most  certainly  ob 
scure,  if  not  efface. 

That  which  I  propose  to  consider  somewhat  minutely  relates  to 
a  few  simple  propositions  of  law  arising  out  of  the  provisions  of  the 
act  of  1816.  These  are  subjects  in  themselves  of  narrow  dimensions, 
and  to  most  minds  of  dry  and  uninteresting  character.  Cold  and  re 
pulsive,  however,  as  the  subjects  may  be,  it  is  from  them,  and  out  of 
them,  that  a  public  agent  of  Congress  has  endeavored  to  extract  a 
power  so  large  and  so  pervading  that  its  colossal  form  meets  and 
blocks  up  the  way  of  Congress  in  whatever  part  of  our  allotted 
sphere  we  attempt  to  move.  This  spectral  image  of  despotism,  let 
it  be  remembered,  rises  from  the  tomb  of  the  Bank  of  the  United 
States.  The  same  scepter,  with  one  blow  of  which  he  leveled  the 
bank  in  the  dust,  is  at  this  moment  stretched  out  to  bar  the  ap 
proaches  of  Congress,  either  to  the  grave  of  his  late  victim,  or  to  the 
treasury  of  the  people,  on  which  he  has  seized  as  his  lawful  prey. 

The  resolution  on  your  table,  which  is  the  immediate  subject  of 
discussion,  proposes  a  total  radical  change,  or  rather  subversion,  of 
our  whole  system  of  finance.  That  change,  it  will  occur  to  all,  can 
not  be  effected  unless  Congress  shall  give  its  approval  to  the  argu 
ment  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  giving  his  reasons  for  taking 
the  first,  and,  as  I  fear,  fatal  step  in  this  new  and  untried  experiment. 
That  argument,  it  is  contended,  furnishes  a  legal  justification  to  the 
Secretary  for  proceeding,  at  the  will  and  under  the  direction  of  the 
President,  to  dismiss  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  from  our  service 
as  an  agent  to  collect  and  disburse  the  revenue,  and  to  withhold  from 
t  that  revenue  which,  by  law,  was  ordered  to  be  deposited  with  the 


152  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

bank  for  safe  keeping.  After  a  careful,  and,  as  I  believe,  unbiased 
attention  to  all  that  has  been  urged  to  sustain  this  proposition,  I  can 
not  yield  to  it  the  assent  of  my  understanding. 

A  very  cursory  view  of  the  groundwork  of  this  discussion  will 
disclose  the  necessity,  in  the  first  place,  of  a  careful  examination  of 
the  powers  and  duties  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  under  the 
Constitution  and  general  laws  relating  to  that  department.  In  set 
tling  the  character,  origin  and  responsibilities  of  that  officer  is  devel 
oped  that  radical  difference  of  political  faith  and  practice  which  di 
vides  the  two  parties  in  this  House,  and,  in  my  judgment,  consti 
tutes  the  most  striking  feature  of  this  discussion. 

On  one  side  are  arrayed  the  friends  of  "executive  power." 
They  contend  that  your  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  is  the  mere  off 
spring  of  executive  will,  and  is  the  agent  and  instrument  of  the 
President;  that  he  sustains  this  character,  not  only  in  the  general  du 
ties  assigned  to  him  by  law,  but  that  such  is  his  character  in  the  re 
lations  between  him  and  the  bank  that  the  discretion  vested  in  the 
Secretary  by  the  sixteenth  section  of  the  bank  charter  to  withhold 
from  that  institution  "the  public  deposits,  giving  his  reasons  to  Con 
gress  for  so  doing,"  is  not  his  discretion,  but  that  he  must  act  in  obe 
dience  to  the  discretion,  will  and  judgment  of  the  President  in  this 
as  well  as  every  other  duty  assigned  him  by  law;  that  he  is  responsi 
ble  to  the  President  only,  and  not  to  Congress,  for  the  faithful  execu 
tion  of  duties  imposed  on  him  by  Congress.  In  short,  they  invest 
the  President  with  all  the  attributes  and  powers  of  a  superintending 
providence  over  all  the  concerns  of  the  Government.  It  is  not  sur 
prising,  after  having  found  in  our  Constitution  such  a  divinity,  that 
those  who  worship  at  his  shrine  should  hold  all  inferior  beings  (as  all 
must  be  so)  responsible  to  him,  and  him  only,  for  their  conduct. 
While  they  give  to  the  President  all  the  powers  and  attributes  of  a 
god,  they  withhold  both  from  the  Secretary  till  they  make  him  much 
less  than  man.  They  admit  the  law  has  said  that  the  deposits  of  the 
public  moneys  shall  be  made  in  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  "un 
less  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  shall  otherwise  order  and  direct," 
in  which  last  case  he  is  to  lay  before  Congress  his  reasons  for  such 
order  and  direction.  Yet,  they  contend  that  while  it  is  the  duty  ot 
the  Secretary  to  do  all  these  things,  he  can  in  none  of  them  exercise 
his  own  faculties ;  he  is  to  see  through  the  President's  eyes,  reason 
through  and  by  the  President's  understanding,  decide  by  the  Presi 
dent's  will,  and  execute  with  the  President's  power.  In  other  words, 


ON    THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS.  153 

he  is  to  be  responsible  without  discretion,  to  reason  without  judg 
ment,  decide  without  will,  and  execute  without  power. 

On  the  other  side  of  this  question  are  to  be  found  those  who 
contend  for  the  "power  of  the  people,"  through  their  representatives, 
over  the  money  of  the  people.  We  maintain  that  in  all  things  per 
taining  to  the  collection,  safe-keeping  and  disbursement  of  their 
taxes,  which  Congress  by  the  Constitution  has  the  exclusive  power 
"to  lay  and  collect,"  and  which  can  only  be  paid  out  when  collected 
by  act  of  Congress,  the  Secretary  receives  his  power  to  act  from 
Congress,  is  the  agent  of  Congress,  and  is  responsible  to  Congress  for 
the  faithful  execution  of  those  powers  intrusted  to  him  by  Congress. 

No  one  who  has  attended  to  the  arguments  in  this  House,  and 
read  the  volumes  of  reports  and  executive  documents  sent  here  to  en 
lighten  us,  can  deny  that  I  have  stated  truly  the  grounds  assumed, 
in  and  out  of  Congress,  by  the  conflicting  parties  on  this  subject. 
The  very  statement  of  the  case  is  itself  the  best  argument  to  show 
that  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  cannot  maintain  the  position  they 
have  assumed.  Unless  there  be  some  reason  hidden  below  the  sur 
face  as  yet  of  all  this  discussion,  which  has,  unperceived  by  all, 
wrought  a  mysterious  conviction  on  the  minds  of  gentlemen,  there 
can  be  no  difficulty  in  coming  to  a  right  decision  of  this  question.  I 
am  fortified  in  this  belief  by  the  contradictory  propositions  assumed 
and  defended  in  the  report  made  to  us  by  the  Committee  of  Ways 
and  Means. 

That  committee,  selected  by  the  Chair  for  its  financial  abilities, 
and  not  by  presumption,  nor  always  in  fact  the  ablest  expounders  of 
the  Constitution,  has,  with  great  care,  presented  the  House  with  a 
very  elaborate  view  of  the  relative  powers  of  Congress,  and  the  Presi 
dent,  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  under  the  Constitution. 

It  sets  out  with  the  assertion  that  the  power  to  select  the  place 
of  deposit,  and  the  person  or  persons  who  shall  have  the  custody  of 
the  public  moneys,  always  did  and  does  now  belong  to  the  head  of 
the  Treasury,  under  the  supervision  and  control  of  the  Executive. 
The  process  of  the  argument  is  this:  It  is  alleged  in  the  report  al 
luded  to  that  this  power,  under  the  old  confederation,  was  considered 
an  executive  power,  and  as  such  was  exerted  by  Congress;  that, 
when  the  confederation  gave  place  to  the  Constitution,  "all  executive 
power"  (this  being  one)  was  transferred  by  the  Constitution  to  the 
President,  where,  under  that  instrument,  it  still  remains.  The  com 
mittee,  with  a  degree  of  industry  much  more  commendable  than  the 


154  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

discrimination  by  which  they  seem  to  have  been  guided,  in  order  to 
show  the  usage  of  former  times  to  be  conformable  to  their  doctrines, 
have  brought  forward  a  variety  of  historical  proofs  and  references. 
Mr.  Speaker,  it  is  no  necessary  part  of  my  duty  or  purpose  to  con 
trovert  this  position.  However  strange  it  may  appear,  the  com 
mittee  have  either  abandoned  or  completely  refuted  it  themselves  in 
the  same  report,  where  with  so  much  labor  they  asserted  and  en 
deavored  to  establish  it.  Neither  am  I  bound  to  account  for  these 
candid  inconsistencies.  Perhaps  the  committee  may  have  thought  it 
a  kind  of  incumbent  duty  to  maintain  the  dignity  and  honor  of  the 
Executive  against  the  charge  of  usurpation.  Having,  however,  dis 
charged  that  duty  to  which  they  felt  themselves  forced  by  the  violent 
impulses  of  the  occasion,  with  most  amiable  partiality  for  Constitu 
tional  truth  and  sound  political  philosophy,  they  abandoned  this 
ground,  and  now  assert  the  power  of  Congress  under  the  Constitu 
tion  to  have  been  always  (up  to  1816)  complete  over  the  public 
moneys,  and  acknowledge  themselves  at  a  loss  to  find  any  good  reason 
why  the  Congress  of  1816  should  then  have  transferred  it  to  other 
hands.  I  beg  leave  to  refer  gentlemen  who  have  not  looked  critically 
at  this  report  to  one  or  two  paragraphs  on  the  fifth  page.  From 
these  it  will  be  seen  I  have  quoted  them  truly,  and  given  to  their 
language  their  own  interpretation. 

In  giving  construction  to  the  sixteenth  section  of  the  bank  char 
ter,  passed  by  Congress  in  1816,  the  committee  say:  "The  eftect 
of  the  sixteenth  section  of  the  bank  charter  is  to  take  from  Congress 
entirely  the  power  to  control  the  public  deposits,  which  that  body 
betore  possessed."  Again,  on  the  same  page,  they  say:  "Wheth 
er  the  Congress  acted  wisely  in  thus  divesting  themselves  of  all  con 
trol  over  the  places  of  public  deposit  of  the  public  moneys  for  the 
long  period  of  twenty  years  is  a  question  which  it  is  unnecessary  to 
determine."  These  quotations  prove  (if  language  is  any  sign  of 
ideas)  that  the  committee  considered  it  undeniable  truth  that  in 
1816  Congress,  by  the  Constitution,  did  possess  legislative  power 
over  this  subject,  and  that  they  divested  themselves  of  that  power  by 
the  act  of  1816.  In  the  first  pages  of  their  report,  however,  they 
have  bestowed  much  labor  to  prove  that  Congress  never  did  possess 
this  power ;  that,  by  the  Constitution,  it  was  confided  to  the  Presi 
dent  as  the  head  of  the  Executive  department,  this  being  one  of  the 
executive  powers  which,  by  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  was 
among  others  transferred  to  that  officer. 


ON    THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS.  155 

Let  us  pause  at  this  point  for  a  moment  while  we  examine  the 
consequences,  I  can  not  say  absurdities,  (for  that  word,  though  one 
of  "exceedingly  good  command"  in  our  language,  is  not  parliamen 
tary)  which  flow  from  the  various  positions  maintained,  and  most  of 
them  in  turn  abandoned  or  refuted,  in  the  committee's  report. 
First,  it  is  asserted  that  the  power  over  the  deposits  of  the  public 
moneys  by  the  Constitution,  being  an  executive  power,  belongs  to 
the  President,  who  is  to  exercise  it  through  his  agent,  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury.  It  follows  that  this  power,  if  given  to  the  Presi 
dent,  could  not  be  exercised  or  controlled  by  Congress,  unless  the 
Constitution  should  be  so  changed  as  to  give  them  such  control,  yet, 
in  the  succeeding  pages  of  this  same  report,  the  committee  find  Con 
gress  in  lawful  possession  of  this  power,  but,  as  they  insist,  taking  it 
away  from  themselves  and  giving  it  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
in  the  year  1816.  If  the  first  position  be  true,  the  second  is  certain 
ly  unfounded.  Again,  if  the  committee  be  right  in  the  position  that 
Congress  in  1816  did  possess  complete  control  over  the  person  who 
should  keep  and  the  place  where  the  public  moneys  should  be  kept, 
and  if  this  power  was  given  them  by  the  Constitution,  could  Con 
gress,  at  its  pleasure,  change  the  Constitution  and  transfer  that  pow 
er  to  another?  The  committee  seem  to  think  they  could.  When 
the  committee  speak  of  Congress  "divesting"  itself  of  a  power  held 
under  the  Constitution,  I  can  only  understand  them  by  supposing 
they  take  it  for  granted  that  Congress,  at  its  pleasure  can,  by  law, 
transfer  power  from  one  branch  of  the  Federal  Government  to  an 
other.  This  doctrine,  sir,  is  new  to  me ;  nor  do  I  believe  it  has,  as 
yet,  obtained  a  very  general  credit  with  American  statesmen. 

To  this  family  of  incongruities  permit  me,  before  I  take  my 
leave  of  them,  to  introduce  a  kindred  fallacy  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury.  It  will  be  found  in  what  he  calls  his  "reasons"  for  with 
holding  the  public  moneys  from  the  Bank  of  the  United  States.  It 
is  this:  He  (the  Secretary)  asserts  that  the  act  of  1816,  creating 
the  bank,  is  unconstitutional.  If  so,  it  is  inoperative  and  can  confer 
no  rights  upon  the  bank — no  powers  upon  any  one.  It  leaves  every 
subject  it  touches  as  though  no  law  had  been  attempted  to  be  enact 
ed.  Yet  the  Secretary  himself  and  the  committee,  in  their  report, 
claim  that  this  same  act  gives  power  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
to  lay  his  hand  upon  the  whole  revenues  of  this  nation  and  transfer 
them  to  persons  and  deposit  them  in  places  not  authorized  or  desig 
nated  by  law.  Reason  and  law  would  tell  us  that  if,  as  the  commit- 


156  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

tee  argue,  Congress  rightfully  possessed  this  power  in  1816,  and  if, 
as  the  committee  and  Secretary  both  agree,  the  attempt  to  vest  it 
elsewhere  resulted  in  passing  an  act  unconstitutional,  and  therefore 
void,  then  the  power  remained  where  it  was — that  is  to  say,  in  Con 
gress  and  not  in  the  Secretary  or  the  President;  and  the  question 
may  well  be  asked,  by  what  law  does  the  Secretary  claim  to  possess 
himself  of  this  high  and  transcendent  power?  Mr.  Speaker,  when  I 
look  at  this  ludicrous  jumble  of  contradictions  and  remember  that 
they  are  the  joint  product  of  the  well-known,  talented  and  accom 
plished  mind  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  the  not  less  rich 
ly-endowed  intellect  of  the  honorable  chairman  of  the  "Ways  and 
Means,"  I  see  and  acknowledge,  in  thankfulness  of  heart,  the  opera 
tion  of  one  of  those  laws  which  Infinite  Wisdom  has  established  for 
the  government  of  the  mind  of  man.  Reason  is  given  by  God  to 
man  to  guide  him  with  certainty  in  the  way  of  truth.  That  way  is 
always  straight ;  it  is  plain  and  bright  with  the  lights  that  ever  burn 
around  and  along  its  borders.  The  path  of  error  and  sophistry  is  in 
the  wilderness.  Their  course  is  mazy,  devious  and  shrouded  in  dark- . 
ness.  Whenever  bias  or  passion,  therefore,  perverts  the  understand 
ing  from  the  uses  to  which  it  was  ordained  by  Him  who  gave  it,  as  a 
penalty  for  its  abuse,  the  wisdom  of  the  wisest  becomes  folly,  and, 
that  it  may  deceive  no  one,  is  involved  in  difficulties  and  contradic 
tions  and  ends  in  discomfiture  and  defeat.  We  have  before  us  a  case 
where  this  great  moral  truth  is  most  strikingly  exemplified.  The 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  aided  by  the  labors  of  the  Committee  of 
Ways  and  Means,  with  great  toil  and  care  erects  a  costly  and  mag 
nificent  and  heathenish  anti-republican  temple.  They  cover  its  walls 
all  over  with  inscriptions  of  monarchical  dogmas  and  barbaric  phrases 
alien  to  the  dialects  of  democracy  and  not  written  in  the  republican 
"books  of  the  law"  delivered  to  us  by  our  fathers.  With  equal  toil 
and  pains  they  then  construct  a  monstrous  Juggernaut  and  engrave 
upon  his  frontlet  the  magic  words,  "Executive  Power."  Him  they 
enshrine  with  all  the  pomp  of  heathen  idolatry.  This  done,  they 
point  to  their  idol  and  command  us  to  "fall  down  and  worship." 
Suddenly,  however,  the  scene  changes.  While  we  stand  wrapped  in 
amazement  at  the  vast  dimensions  of  the  structure,  the  builders  of  it 
themselves,  impelled  by  a  law  of  their  nature,  assault  it  with  violence, 
and  in  a  twinkling  all  is  gone.  The  gorgeous  temple,  huge  divinity 
and  costly  shrine  are  leveled  together  in  the  dust. 

I  dismiss  this  topic.      Its  singular  character  has,  I  find,  tempted 


ON    THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS.  157 

me  to  pursue  it  much  further  than  I  had  intended.  I  take  it  for 
granted,  then,  that  we  have  established,  by  the  admissions  of  the 
devotees  of  executive  power  themselves,  that  all  power  over  the 
money  of  the  people  belongs  to  the  people,  through  their  represen 
tatives  in  Congress;  that  it  belongs  immediately  to  Congress,  who 
alone  have  power  to  "lay  and  collect  taxes." 

It  follows,  as  a  necessary  consequence,  that  whatever  act  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  may  do  touching  those  "taxes,"  he  must 
do  it  by  virtue  of  some  power  derived  from  Congress.  It  follows 
with  equal  certainty  that,  being  the  agent  of  Congress,  he  is  respon 
sible  to  Congress,  from  whom  he  receives  his  power,  for  its  faithful 
and  intelligent  execution. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  commission  given  by  Congress  to  the 
Secretary  touching  the  public  moneys.  It  will  be  found  in  the  16th 
section  of  the  bank  charter  of  1816  in  these  words:  "The  deposits 
of  the  moneys  of  the  United  States,  in  places  in  which  the  said  bank 
and  branches  thereof  may  be  established,  shall  be  made  in  the  said 
bank  or  branches  thereof,  unless  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  shall 
at  any  time  otherwise  order  and  direct,  in  which  case  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  shall  immediately  lay  before  Congress,  if  in  session, 
and  if  not,  immediately  after  the  commencement  of  the  next  session, 
the  reasons  of  such  order  and  direction."  No  one  can  doubt  the 
character  or  object  of  the  power  here  given.  It  is,  in  its  character, 
a  trust  or  discretionary  power.  Its  objects  were,  first,  the  safety  of 
the  public  treasure ;  secondly,  it  was  intended  to  compel  the  bank  to 
a  faithful  performance  of  its  promise,  to  transmit  without  charge  the 
moneys  of  the  government  to  the  places  where  they  were  required 
to  be  disbursed.  If  the  bank  should  fail  in  either  of  these  stipula 
tions,  Congress  intended  that  the  Secretary  should  have  the  power  to 
find  immediately  other  places  of  deposit  and  other  disbursing  agents. 
To  enable  the  Secretary  to  discharge  the  delicate  trust  thus  reposed 
in  him,  Congress  provides  in  the  same  law  "that  the  officer  at  the 
head  of  the  Treasury  department  of  the  United  States  shall  be  fur 
nished  from  time  to  time,  as  often  as  he  may  require,  not  exceeding 
once  a  week,  with  statements  of  the  amount  of  the  capital  stock  of 
the  said  corporation  and  of  the  debts  due  to  the  same;  of  the 
moneys  deposited  therein ;  of  the  notes  in  circulation ;  and  of  the 
specie  in  hand ;  and  shall  have  a  right  to  inspect  such  general  ac 
counts  on  the  books  of  the  bank  as  shall  relate  to  the  said  statement, 
provided,  that  this  shall  not  be  construed  to  imply  a  right  of  inspect- 


158  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

ing  the  account  of  any  private  individual  or  individuals  with  the 
bank." 

The  last  paragraph  of  this  act  contains  an  answer  to  every  rea 
son  urged  by  the  Secretary  for  removing  the  deposits  from  the  Bank 
of  the  United  States.  It  shows  to  what  objects  Congress  designed 
to  confine  the  power  given  to  that  officer  over  the  public  funds.  All 
that  the  Secretary  can  know,  from  what  the  bank  is  bound  to  disclose 
to  him  in  the  weekly  statement  required  to  be  furnished,  relates  to 
the  solvency  of  the  bank.  It  was  intended  to  furnish  the  Secretary 
in  this  way  with  the  means  of  executing  the  power  given  him  to 
protect  the  safety  of  the  people's  money.  It  will  be  observed  that 
the  Secretary  is,  in  express  words,  denied  the  right  to  look  into  the 
"private  accounts  of  individuals."  With  what  pretense  of  plausibil 
ity  can  it  be  contended,  as  it  has  been  by  the  Secretary  and  President 
too,  that  improper  accounts  between  the  bank  and  certain  printers, 
which  can  only  be  known  by  examining  the  "private  accounts," 
form  a  reason  or  answer  for  the  exercise  of  this  power?  The  con 
struction  contended  for  by  those  who  defend  the  Executive  would 
make  the  Congress  of  1816  confer,  by  law,  large  powers  on  their 
agent,  and,  in  the  same  law,  expressly  deny  him  the  power  to  ascer 
tain  those  facts  upon  which  alone  he  would  be  justified  in  using  the 
power  conferred.  That  Congress  never  intended  to  extend  the 
power  of  the  Secretary  over  the  vast  field  of  inquiry  which,  in  the 
all-grasping  spirit  of  the  executive  government,  he  has  appropriated, 
is  also  evident  from  the  powers  over  the  bank  reserved  to  Congress, 
compared  with  those  given  and  denied  to  the  Secretary,  to  which  last 
I  have  just  adverted.  By  the  23d  section  of  the  charter  it  is  pro 
vided  "that  it  shall  at  all  times  be  lawful  for  a  committee  of  either 
House  of  Congress,  appointed  for  that  purpose,  to  inspect  the  books 
and  to  examine  into  the  proceedings  of  the  corporation  hereby  cre 
ated,  and  to  report  whether  the  provisions  of  this  charter  have  been 
by  the  same  violated  or  not."  It  then  goes  on  to  provide  (in  the 
event  of  a  report  by  the  committee  of  a  violation  of  the  charter) 
that  a  sdre  facias  shall  issue  from  the  Circuit  Court  of  the  United 
States  calling  on  the  bank  to  show  cause,  etc.  A  jury  of  the  coun 
try,  sworn  and  impaneled  to  try  the  cause,  would  then  be  the  tribu 
nal  to  which  the  subject  would  be  referred  for  decision.  But  this 
good  old  usage  of  our  fathers  did  not  comport  with  that  scheme  of 
compendious  confiscation  which  had  been  resolved  on. 

We  have  here  on  the  face  of  the  law  the  duties  and  powers  re- 


ON   THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS.  159 

quired  to  be  done  and  exercised  by  the  Secretary,  and  the  subjects 
of  inquiry  which  Congress  reserved  to  itself  and  the  courts  and  juries 
of  the  country.  But  the  Secretary,  with  this  law  before  him,  backed 
or  pushed  forward  by  the  President,  takes  all  the  powers  of  Congress 
and  the  courts  into  his  own  hand  and  gravely  tells  Congress  that,  by 
the  law  I  have  just  quoted,  he  (whenever,  in  his  opinion,  "the  pub 
lic  good  or  convenience  required  it,")  could  dismiss  the  bank  as  a  de 
pository  of  the  public  money  and  dissolve  all  connection  of  the  Gov 
ernment  with  that  institution.  In  effect,  he  assumes,  with  a  boldness 
unparalleled  in  any  officer  in  a  country  of  laws,  to  exercise  execu 
tive,  legislative  and  judicial  power;  to  forfeit  charters  held  under  the 
pledged  faith  of  the  nation ;  to  seize  upon  rights  guaranteed  by  all 
the  solemnities  of  legislative  enactment  and  fortified  by  all  the 
strength  of  legislative  power. 

Let  us  examine  this  modest  assumption  of  the  Secretary  by  an 
other  test.  He  insists  that  his  power  to  dissolve  all  connection  with 
the  United  States  Bank  is  unlimited,  except  "by  his  own  discretion." 
If  then,  in  his  opinion,  the  bank  was  dangerous  as  a  monopoly  (for 
this  is  much  insisted  on);  if  it  did  not  furnish  a  good  currency;  if 
State  banks  would  be,  in  his  opinion,  more  safe  or  convenient  depos 
itories  of  the  public  moneys;  if  the  tendencies  of  the  institution,  in 
his  or  the  President's  opinion,  would  be  unfriendly  to  the  morals  of 
the  people ;  then,  in  either  of  these  cases,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury  could  of  his  own  proper  authority,  under  the  act  of  1816,  as  to 
all  public  purposes,  repeal  the  law  itself.  Sir,  is  this  to  be  tolerated? 
Were  the  men  who  composed  the  Congress  of  1816  such  miserable 
drivelers  as  this  interpretation  of  their  acts  would  make  them? 
What  objects  had  they  in  view  in  erecting  the  United  States  Bank? 
Is  any  American  citizen  who  can  read  so  ignorant  as  not  to  know 
them?  The  Government  had  lost  by  State  banks  about  fourteen 
hundred  thousand  dollars.  It  determined  to  create  a  bank  as  a  place 
of  safe-keeping  of  the  people's  money,  which  it  could  examine  into 
and  control  in  order  to  prevent  future  loss.  The  arguments  for  and 
against  this  institution  were  heard  for  three  years  in  this  hall  prior  to 
the  final  passage  of  the  bank  charter — its  dangerous  tendencies  as  a 
moneyed  monopoly;  its  power  over  the  politics  of  the  country;  the 
effect  it  would  have  on  currency,  trade  and  exchange,  all  were  deba 
ted  with  zeal  and  ability,  which  would  have  illustrated  the  history  of 
any  deliberative  body  that  ever  yet  assembled  anywhere  upon  earth. 
These  various  points  of  policy  were  all  settled  by  Congress,  the  only 


160  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

power  in  a  representative  government  which  can  take  cognizance  of 
such  subjects.  The  act  was '  passed ;  it  received  the  President's  ap 
proval  ;  it  became  a  law  for  twenty  years.  Now  the  President  and 
Secretary  assert  that  this  same  Congress,  by  a  clause  in  this  same  act, 
authorized*  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  sit  down  and  examine 
whether  Congress  had  acted  wisely  or  not;  whether  a  bank  was  a 
dangerous  engine  against  liberty ;  whether  it  would  or  would  not  be 
likely  to  exert  a  beneficial  and  wholesome  influence  upon  trade  and 
domestic  or  foreign  exchange.  If  on  reflection  he  should  be  of  opin 
ion  that  the  public  treasure  could  be  more  securely  kept  and  trans 
mitted  from  place  to  place  by  the  State  banks ;  or  if  he  in  any  of 
these  particulars,  relating  to  public  policy,  should  differ  with  both 
branches  of  Congress  and  the  President,  he  (the  Secretary)  should  in 
that  case  repeal  the  law.  Yes,  sir,  repeal  the  law.  For  the  whole 
object  of  the  bank  charter  was  to  make  the  bank  created  by  it  an 
agent  of  the  Government.  To  give  the  Secretary  a  power  to  de 
stroy  that  agency  for  any  reason  of  a  moral  or  political  character, 
was,  in  substance,  giving  him  a  power  to  repeal  and  annul  the  whole 
law.  Courtesy  forbids  me  the  use  of  terms  proper  to  convey  my 
ideas  of  such  miserable  inconsistency  as  this.  This  course  of  argu 
ment  makes  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  after  years  of  anx 
ious  labor  on  a  subject  of  vital  interest  to  the  nation,  throw  together 
in  the  shape  of  law,  not  a  well-ordered  system  of  finance  reaching, 
as  all  systems  worth  anything  must  do,  forward  with  certain  and 
steady  operation  into  the  future ;  no,  instead  of  this  you  make  them 
heap  together  a  disjointed  jumble  of  crude  conceptions  and  self-evi 
dent  contradictions,  and  then,  in  impotent  despair,  call  upon  the  wis 
dom  and  virtue  and  skill  of  a  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  review 
their  policy  and  make  or  destroy  their  law  at  his  pleasure.  And  this 
is  called  republican  doctrine.  This  is  modern  democracy !  This  is 
said  to  be  the  way  of  keeping  power  in  the  hands  of  the  people, 
"the  many,"  and  denying  sovereign  sway  to  the  few,  or  to  one. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  that  view  of  the  subject  which  regards  the 
various  provisions  of  the  bank  charter  in  the  light  of  a  contract. 

I  am  sure  it  needs  no  argument  to  prove  to  this  House  that  a 
law  which  confers  upon  one  or  more  persons  certain  rights,  and  im 
poses  on  them  certain  duties  to  be  performed,  on  the  faith  of  which 
such  persons  invest  their  money,  is,  in  its  terms  and  nature,  a  com 
pact.  As  such,  for  the  term  of  its  duration,  all  power  given  under  it 


ON    THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS.  161 

is  irrevocable ;  as  a  law,  it  is  not  capable  of  repeal ;  as  a  contract, 
except  in  the  mode  pointed  out  by  its  provisions,  it  is  indissoluble. 

The  bank  charter  of  1816  proposes  to  all  who  would  subscribe 
stock  under  its  provisions,  that  they  should  possess  the  corporate 
powers  specified  in  that  act  for  the  full  term  of  twenty  years.  The 
stockholders,  on  their  part,  agree  to  pay  to  the  United  States  a 
bonus  of  one  million  and  a  half  of  dollars ;  to  receive  and  keep  safe, 
at  their  own  risk,  the  revenues  of  the  Government ;  to  transmit  at 
their  own  risk,  and  without  charge,  the  moneys  of  the  Government 
to  any  point  required  for  disbursement.  In  consideration  of  these 
arduous  and  responsible  duties,  and  the  payment  of  the  bonus,  the 
Government  agrees,  on  its  part,  that  the  stockholders  shall  have  the 
right  to  issue  their  notes,  which  shall  be  received  in  payment  of  all 
public  dues,  unless  Congress  shall  otherwise  direct  by  law.  The 
bank  shall  have  the  benefit  of  the  deposit  of  the  public  moneys  du 
ring  the  term  of  twenty  years,  unless  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
shall  otherwise  order  and  direct,  for  reasons  which  shall  be  approved 
(as  I  construe  the  law)  by  both  branches  of  Congress.  These  are, 
in  substance,  the  mutual  solemn  engagements  between  the  Govern 
ment  of  the  United  States  and  the  stockholders  of  the  United  States 
Bank.  I  think  it  has  been  satisfactorily  shown  that  the  only  reasons 
upon  which  the  Secretary  could  remove  the  public  moneys  from  the 
bank  are,  first,  that  they  were  unsafe  in  its  custody;  or,  secondly, 
that  the  bank  had  failed  or  refused  to  transmit  and  pay  them  over  as 
required  by  law.  It  is  not  pretended  that  our  revenues  are  in  dan 
ger  of  being  lost  by  the  insolvency  of  the  bank,  nor  am  I  aware  that 
it  has  been  suggested  in  debate  that  the  bank  has  been  delinquent  in 
its  engagements  to  transmit  and  pay  them  over  at  any  point  where 
the  Government  has  had  occasion  to  disburse  them.  The  withdrawal 
from  the  bank  of  the  deposits  has,  then,  been  made  without  any 
cause  such  as  was  contemplated  by  the  charter  and,  consequently,  in 
violation  of  the  contract  between  the  Government  and  the  stockhold 
ers  of  the  bank.  What  is  the  position  we  occupy  in  the  face  of  our 
country  and  the  world?  We  have  pledged  the  faith  and  honor  of 
the  nation,  upon  which  pledge  twenty-eight  millions  of  money  have 
been  invested  in  a  bank  in  which  we  are  parties.  Without  any  rea 
son  applicable  to  our  contract,  we  have  wantonly  violated  one  of  its 
vital  and  most  essential  stipulations.  Fully  sensible  of  the  degrad 
ing  and  loathsome  character  of  the  act  we  are  considering,  when 
viewed  as  a  violation  of  contract,  the  sensitive  and  generous  mind  of 
12 


162  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

the  gentleman  from  Georgia  [MR.  GILMER]  ,  as  also  that  of  his  col 
league  [MR.  SCHLEY]  ,  have  labored  to  rid  the  charter  of  all  the  at 
tributes  of  a  compact.  They  seem  to  suppose  it  absurd  to  imagine 
that  a  contract  could  be  made  binding  in  this  instance,  because  one 
of  the  parties  is  a  "corporation."  Many  of  their  remarks  on  this 
part  of  the  subject  resolve  themselves  into  those  quaint  definitions  of 
the  qualities  and  faculties  of  a  corporation  in  the  old  law  books  that 
treat  of  these  subjects.  Among  other  things  it  is  said  that  a  corpor 
ation  has  no  soul.  Sir,  there  is  black-letter  authority  enough  for 
that.  But  the  gentleman  should  have  done  justice  to  the  ancient  lu 
minaries  of  the  law,  and  told,  further,  that  they  only  intended  to  say 
that  a  corporation,  as  such,  could  not  commit  a  crime,  and  in  its  cor 
porate  capacity  could  not  be  punished  as  a  criminal.  Will  gentle 
men  contend  from  this  that  no  binding  contract  can  be  made  with 
any  number  of  persons  who  are  thus  incorporated?  Does  it  follow 
that  the  various  individuals  who  compose  this  artificial  person  with 
out  a  soul,  can,  in  its  corporate  character,  have  no  civil  rights?  This 
course  of  argument  would  seem  to  affirm  that  a  great  nation,  a 
proud  republic,  could  pledge  its  faith  to  the  performance  of  certain 
acts  to  a  corporation  which  itself  had  created,  and  in  good  faith, 
without  tarnishing  its  honor,  at  any  time  refuse  to  redeem  its  pledge, 
and  allege  as  a  justification,  the  ready  plea,  "you  are  a  corporation — 
you  have  no  soul."  Excellent  jurisprudence!  admirable  ethics! 
most  amiable  philosophy !  What  a  figure  such  a  chapter  would  have 
made  in  the  profound  and  eloquent  volumes  of  Hooker!  what  luster 
it  would  have  shed  upon  the  morality  of  Paley !  It  certainly  never 
occurred  to  the  great  teachers  of  law  or  ethics  that,  because  a  corpor 
ation  could  not,  as  such,  commit  murder,  nor  yet  itself  be  subject  to 
that  crime,  therefore  it  followed,  from  reason  irrefragable,  that  it  was 
lawful  and  right  to  rob  it ;  that,  as  it  could  not,  in  its  corporate  char 
acter,  commit  a  crime,  and  would,  therefore,  escape  punishment  in 
the  next  world,  reason,  equity  and  the  eternal  fitness  of  things  re 
quired  that  it  should  be  visited  with  confiscation  in  this.  Of  a  char 
acter  closely  allied  to  this,  in  its  moral  tendency,  is  that  class  of  ar 
guments  which  treats  the  contract  in  the  bank  charter  as  a  promise 
liable  to  be  performed  or  broken,  according  to  the  fluctuating  opin 
ions  of  those  who  might  hold,  for  the  time  being,  the  political  power 
necessary  to  its  faithful  execution.  Is  this  the  light  in  which  mod 
ern  morality  and  law  have  taught  us  to  consider  national  obligations 
and  national  honor?  Does  a  change  of  power  from  one  political 


ON   THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS.  163 

party  to  those  of  another  political  faith  absolve  the  latter  from  all 
obligations  contracted  by  the  former?  Sir,  within  the  last  four  years 
the  long-exiled  Bourbon  has  paid  us  for  spoliations  committed  on 
our  commerce  by  revolutionary  France.  The  present  King  of  Na 
ples  has  remunerated  our  citizens  for  injuries  sustained  by  them  at 
the  hands  of  Joachim  Murat.  Such,  sir,  is  the  universal  law  of  good 
faith  which  descends  and  attaches  upon  all  who,  in  the  process  of 
time,  however  remote,  succeed  to  the  political  power  of  Government. 

It  is  this  faith-keeping  principle  in  States  and  individuals  that 
holds  together  the  moral  elements  of  the  world.  It  is  superior  to, 
and  controls,  all  human  will.  Its  obligations  are  paramount  to  all 
human  control.  It  is  a  law  of  perpetual  obligation,  from  which 
neither  States  nor  individuals  can  absolve  themselves ;  it  is  felt  in  the 
hearts  of  men ;  it  does  not  derive  its  origin  from  society ;  it  is  the 
parent  and  origin  of  all  social  existence;  it  is  the  principle  of  the 
honest  man,  the  honor  of  the  gentleman,  the  chivalry  of  the  brave 
man,  the  piety  of  the  good  man,  the  glory  of  a  nation. 

Mr.  Speaker,  if  this  act  of  the  Secretary  is  in  itself  wrong,  be 
ing  founded  in  palpable  injustice  toward  the  bank,  it  is  not  less  con- 
demnable  as  being  unwise  and  inexpedient  as  a  measure  of  public 
policy.  Though  I  by  no  means  admit  that  what  the  Secretary  calls 
"his  reasons"  are,  in  a  single  instance,  such  as  to  form  even  an 
apology  for  his  conduct,  yet  it  is  only  respectful  toward  him  to  be 
stow  a  passing  notice  upon  some  of  them.  He  sets  out  with  the 
declaration  that  the  people  of  the  United  States  had  declared  that 
the  charter  of  the  present  bank  should  not  be  renewed.  This  is  put 
forward  as  the  basis  upon  which  he  felt  himself  compelled  to  act. 
In  a  matter  effecting  in  the  tenderest  point  the  interest  and  business 
and  property  of  a  nation,  we  should  expect,  from  ordinary  prudence, 
great  certainty  in  ascertaining  facts  necessary  to  be  known,  before 
consequences  so  momentous  were  encountered.  The  evidence  of  the 
existence  of  such  facts  should  not  be  conjectural  or  equivocal,  but 
such  as  could  leave  no  doubt — such  as  would  extort  conviction  from 
the  mind.  What  then,  was  this  proof,  think  you,  of  a  decision  by 
the  people  that  the  bank  should  cease  to  exist?  It  was  this:  Gen 
eral  Jackson  was  re-elected  to  the  presidency  in  November,  1832, 
and  he  was  not  a  friend  of  the  bank !  Here  is  the  direct,  positive, 
overwhelming  evidence  of  the  sense  of  a  nation,  as  the  Secretary 
supposes,  on  a  simple  isolated  question  concerning  the  renewal  of  a 
charter.  What  a  compliment  to  the  President !  He  is,  by  this  view 


164  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

of  the  election,  represented  as  being  chosen  to  preside  over  the  re 
public,  not  for  his  profound  knowledge  of  civil  polity  in  all  its  com 
plex  and  multiform  ramifications ;  not  for  his  acquaintance  with  our 
diplomatic  history ;  not  for  his  large  and  comprehensive  views  of  the 
rising  and  future  destinies  of  this  flourishing  republic ;  not  for  his 
great  renown  in  arts  or  arms ;  no,  none  of  these.  He  was,  accord 
ing  to  the  view  of  it,  clothed  with  the  highest  honor  mortal  man  can 
confer,  simply  and  only  because  he  did  not  like  a  certain  corporation 
in  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  of  which  one  Nicholas  Biddle  was  the 
president.  Sir,  I  can  find  a  hundred  men  at  work  on  the  canal  about 
this  city  before  sunset  that  have  the  same  qualification  for  the  high 
office  of  chief  magistrate  of  the  republic,  if  opposition  to  a  banking 
corporation  is  to  be  the  sole  and  exclusive  test  of  merit.  The  peo 
ple  of  this  country  will  no  longer  be  fit  to  be  trusted  with  the  elec 
tion  of  their  President,  when  they  make  that  election  turn  upon  a 
single  supposed  opinion  of  their  candidate  touching  one  only  of  the 
great  variety  of  subjects  upon  which  that  officer  is  obliged  to  act. 
For  the  reputation  of  the  President,  for  the  character  of  my  coun 
trymen,  I  trust  this  opinion  expressed  by  the  Secretary,  and  in  an 
other  document  asserted  by  the  President  himself,  will  be  repudiated 
by  this  House.  I  know  it  will  be  rejected  with  indignation  by  the 
enlightened  freemen  of  the  country  as  a  reflection  upon  their  intelli 
gence. 

But,  sir,  I  deny  that  the  President  ever  expressed  to  the  people 
an  unqualified  declaration  against  the  renewal  of  the  charter  of  the 
United  States  Bank.  I  know  that  he  refused  his  approval  to  the  bill 
for  that  purpose  passed  in  1832 ;  but  do  we  not  all  know  that  among 
other  things  in  his  message  to  Congress  on  that  subject,  the  Presi 
dent  distinctly  asserts  the  power  of  Congress  to  create  a  bank,  and 
plainly  intimates  his  willingness  to  aid  them  in  doing  so?  Let  his 
own  language  speak  for  him:  "That  a  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
competent  to  all  the  duties  which  may  be  required  by  the  govern 
ment,  might  be  so  organized  as  not  to  infringe  on  our  own  delegated 
powers,  or  the  reserved  rights  of  the  States,  /  do  not  entertain  a  doubt. 
Had  the  Executive  been  called  upon  to  furnish  the  project  of  such 
an  institution,  the  duty  would  have  been  cheerfully  performed.  In 
the  absence  of  such  a  call  it  is  obviously  proper  that  he  should  con 
fine  himself  to  pointing  out  those  prominent  features  in  the  act  pre 
sented,  which,  in  his  opinion,  make  it  incompatible  with  the  Consti 
tution  and  sound  policy."  Here  we  have  a  distinct  annunciation  by 


ON    THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS.  165 

the  President,  that  a  bank  might  be  created  which  would  answer  all 
public  purposes;  of  this  he  says  he  "does  not  entertain  a  doubt," 
and  that  if  called  upon,  he  would  cheerfully  furnish  the  project  of 
such  an  institution.  This,  sir,  in  that  portion  of  the  country  within 
the  range  of  my  immediate  observation,  was  seized  upon  by  the 
President's  friends  at  his  last  election  to  show  that  he  would  yet  fur 
nish  to  the  country  a  bank.  He,  and  he  alone,  it  would  seem,  had 
made  the  discovery  of  some  project  concerning  currency  and  treas 
ury  agency,  which  the  wisdom  of  the  wisest  for  the  Jast  fifty  years 
had  sought  for  in  vain.  The  country  has  patiently  waited  the  re 
demption  of  this  pledge  for  two  years.  Still  some  of  his  friends 
cry,  "Patience,  it  will  yet  be  brought  forth."  Great  mystery  is  af 
fected  and  no  one  ventures  to  say  precisely  what  it  will  resemble; 
yet  still  it  will  be,  it  is  said,  when  it  does  come,  just  what  all  desire. 
Deep  in  the  recesses  of  executive  wisdom  they  tell  us  this  grand  se 
cret  is  hidden.  That  which  escaped  the  anxious  search  of  Washing 
ton,  Hamilton,  Madison,  Jefferson,  and  all  the  Secretaries  of  the 
Treasury  for  forty  years,  had  been  discovered  by  the  present  chief 
magistrate,  and  surely  it  would  not  be  withheld  from  the  world.  It 
was  suddenly  to  spring  from  the  pregnant  head  of  the  Executive 
like  another  Minerva  from  the  head  of  Jove — the  impersonation  of 
wisdom  armed  from  head  to  foot,  covered  all  over  with  the  panoply 
of  the  Constitution,  graced  with  all  the  amiable  facilities  of  bank 
credit  and  sound  currency,  and  endowed,  in  an  especial  manner, 
with  the  energies  and  security  of  a  proper  treasury  agent.  This, 
sir,  is  what  was  decided  upon  by  the  people  in  the  election  of  the 
President;  this  was  what  they  were  promised;  they  relied  on  that 
promise.  Sir,  it  had  that  quality  which  always  commends  itself  to 
our  credence ;  to  say  the  least  of  it,  it  was  modest. 

Two  years  have  elapsed,  and  the  expecting  world  still  waits  in 
hope  of  the  grand  development.  Whether  we  are  to  die  "without 
the  sight "  is  among  those  future  events  which  the  curtain  of  time 
(perhaps  fortunately  for  us)  still  conceals  from  mortal  scrutiny.  I 
take  it  for  granted  that  the  rickety,  misshapen  imp,  lately  born  of  a 
forbidden  concubinage  between  executive  assumption  and  State  bank 
prostitution,  which  we  now  see  mewling  and  puking  in  the  arms  of 
the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  is  not  to  be  palmed  upon  us  for 
that  "cara  Deum  soboles"  that  "  magnum  Joins  incremcnlum,"  which 
the  world  has  so  long  been  promised. 

Mr.   Speaker,  let  us  examine  some  other  of  our  recollections  of 


166  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

subjects  agitated,  and,  by  presumption,  supposed  to  have  been  de 
cided  by  the  people  in  the  election  of  President.  Prior  to  the  elec 
tion  of  1829,  nothing,  touching  the  opinions  of  the  candidates, 
formed  a  more  decisive  test  in  the  Western  States  than  the  ''tariff 
and  internal  improvement."  So  anxious  were  the  people  of  that  sec 
tion  of  the  country  to  be  well  informed  on  this  subject,  that  the  Leg 
islature  of  Indiana  authorized  their  Governor  to  open  a  correspon 
dence  with  General  Jackson,  then  a  candidate,  in  order  to  have  rec 
ord  proof  of  his  principles  touching  the  measures  to  which  I  have 
referred.  What  followed  ?  In  a  reply  to  the  Governor,  a  letter  ad 
dressed  to  a  gentleman  in  the  South  and  votes  given  in  the  other 
branch  of  Congress  were  referred  to,  but  nothing  explicit  beyond 
these  could  be  learned.  This,  however,  was  received  by  the  good- 
natured  people  of  Indiana  as  full  proof  of  the  General's  friendship 
to  a  protective  system  of  duties  and  liberal  expenditure  of  public 
money  upon  roads  and  canals.  Now,  sir,  if  we  can  trust  at  all  the 
newspapers  of  that  day,  we  know  that  this  same  letter  and  these 
Senatorial  votes  were  referred  to  in  the  South  as  furnishing  very  sat 
isfactory  evidence  of  the  same  gentleman's  hostility  to  both  tariff 
and  internal  improvement. 

With  these  examples  of  the  dubious  character  of  any  evidence 
of  public  will,  derived  from  the  agitation  of  any  subject  in  elections, 
we  should  have  expected  the  highly-cultivated  legal  mind  of  the  Sec 
retary  to  hesitate  in  receiving  that  sort  of  proof  as  satisfactory  in 
any  manner  involving  deeply  the  public  interest.  Our  astonishment 
increases  when  we  hear  the  President  himself,  with  all  the  facts  to 
which  I  have  adverted  fresh  in  his  memory,  make  the  declaration 
that  his  election  in  1832  is  to  be  received  as  a  decision  of  the  people 
that  the  bank  is  not  to  be  re-chartered.  Another  reason,  as  it  is 
called,  much  insisted  on  is  equally  without  foundation  in  fact.  It  is 
amusing,  if  not  vexatious,  to  observe  the  freedom  with  which  both 
the  Secretary  and  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  draw  upon  the 
credulity  of  Congress  and  the  people.  They  propose  to  destroy  the 
United  States  Bank,  and  employ  as  treasury  agents  some  hundreds 
of  State  banks  throughout  the  Union,  for  the  purpose — (mark  the 
object  in  view!) — for  the  purpose  of  "bringing  back  the  currency 
where  the  sages  who  formed  the  Constitution  found  and  left  it." 
Where  did  the  much-abused  and  misrepresented  sages  who  formed 
the  Constitution  find  the  currency?  The  mists  of  antiquity  have  not 
yet  settled  down  upon  the  period  referred  to  so  heavily  as  to  obscure 


ON    THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS.  167 

from  our  vision  the  men  and  the  deeds  of  that  day.     They  fowid  the 
currency  made  up  of  "continental  money"  and  "bills  of  credit"  is 
sued  by  the  several  States  of  the  then  confederacy.      Is  this,  then, 
the  kind  of  currency  which  the  patriots  and  philanthropists  of  the 
present  day  intend  to  give  us?     Where,  again  I  ask,  did  the  sages 
who    formed    the    Constitution    leave   the    currency?     Let    us    look 
somewhat  minutely  into  this  portion  of  our  history.     I  shall  be  will 
ing  to  go  with  gentlemen  in  any  measure  which  will  give  us  just 
such  a  currency  as  the  sages  who  formed  the  Constitution  left  us. 
The  convention  that  formed  the  Constitution  was  composed  of  thirty- 
nine  members,  including  General  Washington,  its  presiding  officer. 
Of  the  thirty-eight  members  who  signed  the  Constitution  in  1787, 
sixteen    were  members  of  Congress  under  the  Constitution   in  the 
year  1791,  when  the  first  United  States  Bank  was  chartered;  twelve 
of  these  sixteen  voted  for  that  bank,  and  four  against  it.      Among 
those    who    voted  against  it  was  Mr.   Madison,   who    afterward,   in 
1816,  yielded  his  objections  and  approved  the  charter  of  the  present 
bank.      General  Washington  in   1791   was  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  approved  the  establishment  of  the  bank.      General  Ham 
ilton    was   then    Secretary    of  the  Treasury,    and   recommended   it. 
Here,  then,  we  have  the  recorded  opinions  of  eighteen  of  the  thirty- 
nine  who  signed  the  Constitution ;  fifteen  of  these  were  in  favor  of  the 
Bank  of  the  United  States,  and  three  against  it.      But,  sir,  this  is  not 
all.      We  are  informed  by  those  still  living,  who  knew  well  the  opin 
ions  of  those  other  sages  who  formed  the  Constitution,   who  were 
not  in  the  Congress  of  1791,  that  seventeen  of  them  were  in  favor 
of  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  as  then  established.     The  opin 
ions  of  those  who  formed  the  Constitution,   as  to  currency,  would 
then   stand   thus:     Thirty-two   in   favor  of  a   Bank   of  the   United 
States,    and   seven   against    it.      It  was   a  currency,    regulated,  con 
trolled  and  created  by  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  which  the 
sages  who  formed  the  Constitution  "left  us."     From  the  year  1791 
to  the  present  hour,  more  than  forty  years,  excepting  four  years  of 
derangement,  disaster  and  ruin,  (from  1811  to  1816,  when  we  had 
no  United  States  Bank,)  we  have  had  that  currency,  and  now  we  are 
told,  with  apparent  candor,  too,  that  by  abolishing  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  and  giving  to  one  hundred  State  banks  twenty  mill 
ions  of  public   money  annually  to  issue  bank-notes  upon,   we  shall 
bring  back  such  a  currency  as  the  sages  of  1791  gave  us;  that  we 
shall,  in  this  way,  restore  the  currency  to  the  condition  in  which  the 


168  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

immortal  authors  of  the  Constitution  left  it.  I  have  neither  time 
nor  temper  to  animadvert  further  upon  this  attempt  to  bolster  up  the 
miserable  schemes  and  shifts  of  this  day,  dignified  with  the  name  of 
plans,  by  authorities  drawn  from  the  earlier  portion  of  our  constitu 
tional  history.  It  can  only  succeed  by  mistaking  the  authority,  or 
by  a  gross  misunderstanding  of  historical  facts. 

When  we  shall  have  broken  up  the  present  system  of  things, 
what  does  the  Secretary,  what  do  the  committee,  propose  to  give  us 
in  its  stead?  Shall  we  have  a  better  circulating  medium?  They 
propose  to  give  us,  instead  of  United  States  Bank  bills,  the  notes  of 
State  banks.  More  than  four  hundred  of  these  now  exist  in  the  dif 
ferent  States.  Their  notes  are  selling  at  the  brokers'  offices  in  differ 
ent  parts  of  the  Union,  at  a  discount  varying  from  two  to  ten  per 
cent,  at  this  moment.  Two  years  ago,  when  war  was  declared 
against  the  present  Bank  of  the  United  States,  we  were  told  that  all 
banks  were  to  be  put  down.  They  were  all  then  monopolies,  dan 
gerous  to  liberty,  and  the  destruction  of  paper  currency  and  the  res 
toration  of  coin  were  then  begun.  This  was  then  the  confident  as 
sertion  of  a  portion  of  the  party  now  in  power.  Let  the  history  of 
that  party,  in  the  Legislatures  of  the  States  since  that  time,  speak 
for  itself.  In  Ohio,  Kentucky  and  Indiana,  what  has  it  done? 
Why,  sir,  in  order  to  banish  bank  paper  and  restore  coin  they  com 
menced  a  clamor  for  State  banks,  and  in  my  own  State  have,  since 
1832,  incorporated  four  millions  of  State  bank  capital.  This  has 
been  done  by  that  very  party  who  are  to  bring  back  gold  and  silver 
currency  by  destroying  banks.  The  same  scene  has  been  acted  by 
the  same  class  of  politicians  in  all  the  Western  States.  It  is  now  a 
well-known  fact,  that  since  the  message  of  the  President  was  promul 
gated,  putting  his  veto  on  the  United  States  Bank  charter  of  1832, 
more  than  forty  millions  of  bank  capital  have  been  incorporated  in 
the  different  States  in  the  Union.  Such  is  the  progress  already 
made  toward  restoring  gold  and  silver  currency.  I  venture  now  the 
prediction  that,  if  the  United  States  Bank,  or  some  similar  institu 
tion,  be  not  established,  you  will,  before  the  lapse  of  five  years,  see 
twice  the  number  of  State  banks  now  in  existence.  Their  notes  will 
be  flying  everywhere,  thick  as  the  leaves  of  the  forest  in  an  autum 
nal  hurricane,  and  about  as  valuable. 

But  suppose  your  league  of  Treasury  banks  should  succeed  in 
establishing  their  credit  so  as  to  give  general  currency  to  their  pa 
per  ;  will  not  those  banks  in  that  way,  by  loans  and  exchanges,  gain 


ON    THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS.  169 

the  same  power  and  control  over  the  business  and  trade  of  the  coun 
try,  which,  you  say,  is  now  possessed  by  the  United  States  Bank — 
that  dangerous  power,  for  the  possession  of  which,  you  say,  it  must  be 
abolished?  And  what  is  gained  by  the  exchanging  one  for  the  other? 
What  will  your  condition  be  when  your  league  banks  shall  be  able  to 
crush,  if  they  choose,  the  trade  of  the  country?  Can  you  strike 
them  out  of  existence  ?  No !  over  them  or  their  charters  you  have 
no  control.  The  State  Legislatures  gave  them  life,  and  will,  at  their 
pleasure,  prolong  their  existence.  Suppose  their  charters  expire; 
they  are  your  Treasury  agents ;  they  will  then  be  indispensable  to 
your  system  of  finance.  Will  they  consent  to  expire  ?  Will  not 
the  stockholders  in  them  be  just  as  anxious  for  a  renewal  of  their 
charters  as  the  owners  of  stock  in  the  United  States  Bank  now  are 
for  a  renewal  of  theirs  ?  Yes,  sir,  they  will,  and  they  will  be  just  as 
little  scrupulous  about  the  means  employed  to  obtain  their  end. 
This  image  with  a  hundred  heads,  which  you  are  now  erecting,  will 
be  just  as  difficult  to  destroy  as  the  monster  you  profess  so  much  to 
fear.  The  impure  priesthood  of  Mammon  will  clamor  just  as  loudly 
for  their  hundred-headed  idol  god  as  do  those  now  whom  you  pro 
fess  to  regard  with  so  much  horror.  You  will  find,  when  the  discov 
ery  will  be  too  late,  that  possessing  stock  in  a  State  bank  does  not  of 
itself  make  a  Cato,  nor  owning  the  same  property  in  the  United 
States  Bank  convert  a  good  citizen  into  a  Cataline. 

There  is  another  view  of  the  dangerous  connection  between  the 
Executive  Government  here  and  the  banks  of  the  States,  which  I 
cannot  pass  without  notice.  If  your  scheme  ever  does  succeed,  if  it 
works  well  in  your  fiscal  afifairs  at  all,  it  will  of  course  be  desirable 
to  continue  it  in  steady  operation  for  a  long  time  to  come.  But 
there  will  be  obstacles  to  this.  The  charters  of  some  of  your  banks 
will  terminate.  The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  will,  of  course,  de 
sire  to  have  these  charters  renewed  by  the  Legislatures  of  the  States 
in  which  they  are  situated.  To  effect  this  the  influence  of  the  bank 
will  be  first  exerted  on  the  Treasury  department  here,  by  offering  to 
do  your  business  on  very  advantageous  terms ;  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  with  the  aid  of  the  power,  popularity  and  influence  of  the 
President  for  the  time  being,  will  bear  down  upon  your  State  Legis 
latures  ;  one  vote,  or  two,  or  three,  may,  perhaps,  decide  the  fate  of 
your  bank.  Will  not  those  votes  be  secured?  Yes,  the  whole  pat 
ronage  of  the  Federal  Government  in  this  scheme,  from  time  to 
time,  will  be  tempted  into  the  Legislative  halls  of  the  States.  We 


170  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

have  heard  much  of  consolidation ;  much  of  the  danger  of  merging 
the  independence  of  the  States  in  the  overwhelming  power  of  the 
Federal  Government.  If  the  wit  of  man  were  tasked  to  invent  a 
cunning,  insidious  plan,  by  which  this  ruin  might  be  wrought,  he 
could  not  devise  one  more  likely  to  effect  his  diabolical  purpose  than 
that  proposed  in  this  treasury  invention.  Give  the  Executive  the 
power  to  confer  favors  on  so  many  different  companies  of  men,  who 
also  stand  closely  connected  with  the  State  Governments,  and  you 
have  so  many  centripetal  forces,  drawing,  by  the  resistless  influence 
of  pecuniary  interest,  the  independence  of  the  States  into  the  vortex 
of  federal  control.  These  twenty-four  stars,  that  now  shine  with 
such  mild  and  pure  luster,  will  be  drawn  from  their  spheres  and  their 
lights  quenched  forever  in  the  superior  blaze  of  one  great  central  sun. 
If  these  consequences  do  not  come  upon  us,  it  will  be  because 
the  States  will  not  suffer  themselves  to  be  beguiled  into  your  Treas 
ury  snare.  Judging  from  what  has  already  transpired,  we  may  hope 
the  good  sense  and  patriotism  of  the  States  in  this,  as  in  other  in 
stances,  may  yet  preserve  this  great  confederacy  from  the  fatal  ef 
fects  of  a  mad  and  ruinous  policy.  Three  States  have  already  re 
fused  to  enter  into  this  unholy  alliance.  Virginia,  ever  watchful  of 
the  approaches  of  federal  usurpation,  permitted  your  Treasury  to  so 
journ  a  few  weeks  with  her  citizens ;  but,  finding  you  had  sent  a  foul 
leprosy  into  her  borders,  although  justly  renowned  for  her  hospital 
ity,  ordered  her  people  to  shut  their  doors  upon  you,  and  it  was 
done.  Kentucky,  not  less  famed  for  the  generous  confidence  she 
extends  to  strangers  that  come  to  her — Kentucky,  who  has  a  ready 
welcome  for  every  friend,  and  a  grave  for  every  foe — she,  too,  tried 
your  society  for  a  brief  space ;  and,  finding  her  health  poisoned  by 
your  pestiferous  touch,  drove  you  back  into  your  own  territories. 
Pennsylvania,  too,  meek,  temperate  and  forbearing  as  was  the  spirit 
of  her  illustrious  founder — she  who  receives  the  comfortless  and  dis 
tressed  of  every  kindred,  caste  and  clime  under  heaven,  who  cher 
ishes  all  that  take  refuge  in  the  ever-expanded  arms  of  her  compre 
hensive  urbanity — good  old  Pennsylvania,  who,  like  that  divine  char 
ity  spoken  of  by  the  apostle,  "vaunteth  not  herself,  is  not  puffed 
up,  hopeth  all  things,  believeth  all  things,"  she,  too,  finding  only 
bankruptcy,  poverty  and  want  in  your  society,  yielded  reluctantly  to 
stern  necessity,  and  pronounced  the  doom  of  banishment  upon  you. 
Happy  experiment !  profound  policy !  what  admirable  contrivance  in 
the  plan !  what  perfect  order,  harmony  and  success  in  its  execution ! 


ON    THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS.  171 

How  proud  is  the  condition  of  your  Treasury  under  the  influence  of 
this  grand  experiment !  With  a  certificate  of  good  character  in  its 
hand,  signed  by  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  nation,  it  is  driven  forth 
from  Virginia,  banished  from  Kentucky,  exiled  from  Pennsylvania. 
It  is,  at  this  moment,  a  wandering  mendicant,  begging  in  vain  for  a 
place  whereon  to  rest  the  soles  of  its  weary  feet ;  like  the  hapless  son 
of  Hagar,  driven  forth  from  the  patriarchal  roof,  and  if  report  be 
true,  his  "bread"  quite  gone  and  his  "bottle  of  water"  well  nigh 
expended.  If  you  permit  him  to  remain  much  longer  upon  the  des 
ert,  like  Ishmael,  he.  will  be  compelled  to  sustain  a  wandering  and 
precarious  existence  by  rapine  and  plunder.  He  will  "turn  his 
hand  against  every  man,"  and  "every  honest  man's  hand  will  be 
turned  against  him." 

Is  there  an  American  bosom  that  is  not  pained,  with  mingled 
shame  and  indignation,  at  the  present  degraded  condition  of  our 
country  ?  What  ultimate  or  present  good  is  to  result  from  what  has 
been  done?  None,  no,  none;  but  evil — only  continual  disaster. 
What  else  can  we  expect?  Perfidy  in  the  Government  will  result,  as 
it  ought,  in  poverty  to  the  people.  We  have  not  even  the  common 
motive  of  the  felon ;  we  could  not  be  said  to  have  acted  in  this  in 
stance  from  the  love  of  gain.  In  the  mere  wanton  or  malignant 
consciousness  of  power,  we  have  stained  the  national  honor,  violated 
national  faith;  we  have  taught  the  people  to  disobey  the  injunctions 
of  law  by  permitting  an  unchecked  example  of  its  violation  by  that 
very  power  whose  ordained  duty  it  is  to  maintain  and  enforce  it. 
Let  us  not  deceive  ourselves.  Let  us  not  flatter  each  other  with  the 
expectation  that  this  will  be  a  solitary  instance  of  Executive  en 
croachment.  No,  history  teaches  us  other  lessons.  That  power 
that  can  subvert  ancient  usages,  break  with  impunity  national  com 
pacts,  efface  at  will  written  laws,  uproot  the  firm  foundations  of  the 
Constitution,  that  power,  if  not  suddenly  arrested,  will  survive  all 
that  it  destroys,  and  maintain  itself  in  absolute  dominion,  by  those 
very  arts  and  instruments  through  which  it  required  its  first  mo 
mentum. 

"  'Tis  but  the  same  rehearsal  of  the  past, 

First  freedom,  and  then — glory ;  when  that  fails, 

Wealth,  vice,  corruption — barbarism  at  last."  * 

*  As  if  to  verify  this  prediction,  in  a  few  days  after  these  remarks  were  made  in, 
the  House,  the  President  sent  his  celebrated  protest  to  the  Senate,  claiming  for  himself 
just  enough  power  to  carry  into  effect  "  his  will,"  be  that  what  it  may. 


172  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

When  we  review  the  history  of  the  last  few  months,  and  see  the 
strange  mixture  of  confusion  and  systematic  effort,  all  tending  to 
bring  upon  the  people  lasting  injury,  and  are  told  that  all  this  must 
be  borne  because  "the  people  themselves  willed  it  should  be  so,"  I 
cannot  but  remind  the  Executive  Government  and  gentlemen  here  of 
instances  in  which  they  have  disregarded  that  will,  when  it  was  fully 
and  fairly  understood. 

Prior  to  the  presidential  election  in  1828  the  present  chief  mag 
istrate,  then  a  Senator  in  Congress  from  Tennessee,  in  his  letter  of 
resignation  to  the  Tennessee  Legislature,  held  the  following  excellent 
doctrines.  Speaking  of  a  contemplated  alteration  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  he  says:  "I  would  impose  a  provision  rendering  any  member 
of  Congress  ineligible  to  office  under  the  General  Government  dur 
ing  the  term  for  which  he  was  elected,  and  for  two  years  thereafter. 
But  if  this  change  in  the  Constitution  shall  not  be  made,  and  impor 
tant  appointments  continue  to  devolve  on  the  Representatives  in 
Congress,  it  requires  no  depth  of  thought  to  be  convinced  that  cor 
ruption  will  become  the  order  of  the  day,  and  that,  under  the  garb 
of  conscientious  sacrifice  to  establish  precedents  for  the  public  good, 
evils  of  serious  importance  to  the  freedom  and  prosperity  of  the 
republic  may  arise."  Do  any  of  us  forget  the  flame  of  enthusiasm 
which  these  sentiments  kindled  in  the  ardent  and  confiding  hearts 
of  the  freemen  of  this  country  ?  In  the  election  of  General  Jackson, 
they  looked  forward  to  the  establishment  of  all  these  excellent  prin 
ciples  as  cardinal  maxims  in  his  administration.  The  most  extrava 
gant  anticipations  of  great  benefits  were  confidently  indulged.  Could 
such  a  man,  with  such  pure  principles,  be  placed  in  the  executive 
chair,  a  sun  bright  with  millenial  glory  would,  it  was  said,  dawn  upon 
the  republic  never  to  go  down.  All  grievances  would  be  redressed ; 
all  tears  would  be  wiped  from  all  eyes;  his  administration,  com 
pared  with  all  others,  would  be 

"  An  era  of  sweet  peace  'midst  bloody  annals ; 
A  green  spot  in  the  desert  of  past  centuries." 

Were  these  fond  and  fanciful  hopes  realized?  The  election  of 
1828  ended  in  the  success  of  the  man  who,  by  propagating  those 
doctrines,  had  made  himself  the  idol  of  the  people's  hearts.  How, 
sir,  was  this  generous  confidence  requited?  No  sooner  was  he 
firmly  seated  on  the  throne  of  power,  than,  as  if  to  show  his  scorn 
for  popular  credulity,  he  boldly  marched  into  the  Senate  and  took  its 
members  away  to  make  his  cabinet  council.  This  House  was  liter- 


ON    THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS.  173 


ally  emptied  to  fill  places  made  vacant  by  removal ;  not  one,  or  two, 
or  three,  but  whole  squadrons  of  members  were  marched  off  to  be 
made  the  subjects  of  reward,  from  foreign  ministers  of  the  highest 
grade  down  to  petty  clerkships  in  the  executive  departments.  Grat 
itude  for  friends  and  revenge  for  foes;  the  maxims  of  Sylla  were 
openly  avowed  as  the  doctrines  upon  which  executive  patronage  was 
to  be  dispensed.  I  shall  not  soon  forget  an  instance  of  reward  and 
punishment  which  created,  at  the  time,  not  merely  astonishment,  but 
strong  indignation,  in  Ohio.  General  Harrison  was  a  native  son  of 

o  o 

Virginia.  In  his  nineteenth  year  (I  believe  being  then  a  lieutenant 
in  the  army)  he  was  selected  by  General  Wayne  as  one  of  his  aids 
in  the  memorable  campaign  of  1794,  which  terminated  the  war  with 
the  Indian  tribes  of  the  northwest.  At  a  very  early  age  he  was 
chosen  a  delegate  to  Congress  from  the  Northwestern  Territory,  and 
subsequently  made  Governor  of  the  Territory  of  Indiana.  After 
the  disastrous  campaign  of  Hull  in  1812  he  was  selected  by  the 
Government  to  command  those  noble  Kentucky  and  Ohio  volun 
teers,  who  thronged  in  thousands  to  the  tented  field,  to  redeem  the 
sinking  fortunes  of  war.  My  gallant  friend  from  Kentucky  [COLONEL 
JOHNSON]  won  those  unfading  laurels,  to  which  time  only  adds  fresh 
verdure,  fighting  under  the  immediate  eye  and  command  of  Harri 
son  at  the  ever-memorable  battle  of  the  Thames.  At  the  close  of 
the  war  General  Harrison  resigned  his  commission,  and,  in  the  spirit 
of  the  example  of  Cincinnatus,  retired  to  his  farm  in  Ohio.  From 
thence  he  was  soon  called  by  the  legislature  of  that  State  to  a  seat  in 
the  Senate.  Such  a  citizen  was  thought  by  the  administration  then 
in  power  a  fit  representative  of  this  government  at  the  capital  of  the 
Colombian  republic.  He  had  not  been  friendly  to  the  election  of 
General  Jackson.  In  one  month,  I  believe,  after  the  inauguration  of 
the  latter,  and  before  General  Harrison  was  known  to  have  reached 
Bogota,  his  place  of  destination,  he  was  recalled,  and  a  member 
( then )  of  this  House,  a  warm,  active,  industrious,  powerful  friend  of 
the  new  President  appointed  in  his  place.  Thus  the  active,  useful 
friend  was  rewarded ;  the  opponent  punished. 

After  all  this  forgetfulness  of  pledges  given  and  public  will  ex 
pressed,  when  the  President,  and  his  friends  for  him,  allege  that  he 
has  taken  the  custody  of  the  public  money  from  a  long-tried  and 
faithful  agent,  because  it  is  the  people's  will,  I  must  be  pardoned 
while  I  doubt.  Sir,  if  I  had  that  faith  which  could  remove  moun- 


174  SPEECHES    OP   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

tains,  I  should  still  hesitate  to  believe  the  sincerity  of  this  declar 
ation. 

Mr.  Speaker,  no  opinion,  no  principle  is  in  this  country  so  uni 
versally  well  received  by  the  people  as  that  which  teaches  public  ser 
vants  the  duty  of  redeeming,  when  in  office,  pledges  given  when 
candidates  for  office.  It  is  right,  it  is  proper  that  it  should  be  so. 
It  is  the  compact  between  the  servant  and  his  employer  and  should 
be  fulfilled  by  the  former,  at  all  times,  with  scrupulous  fidelity.  The 
great  importance  of  this  operative  principle,  in  a  representative  gov 
ernment,  will  excuse  me  to  the  House  for  calling  their  attention  to 
another  flagrant  instance  of  its  violation,  by  one  who  now  professes 
to  make  it  the  ground  and  cause  of  his  late  extraordinary  movement 
upon  the  bank  and  treasury  of  the  United  States. 

When  the  present  Executive  first  took  his  seat  in  the  Presi 
dential  chair,  he  announced  to  the  people,  in  his  inaugural  address, 
his  determimation  to  reform  a  great  variety  of  existing  evils  in  the 
administration  of  public  affairs.  Among  other  things,  high  on  the 
list  of  these  reformations,  was  inscribed  "the  duty  of  reforming 
those  abuses  which  had  brought  the  patronage  of  the  Federal  Gov 
ernment  to  bear  on  the  freedom  of  elections."*  The  interpretation 
of  this  was  simple  and  well  understood.  It  implied  that  officers 
holding  their  places  under  the  general  government,  had  used  their 
influence  and  employed  their  time  in  the  business  of  electioneering. 
It  avowed  a  determination  to  dismiss  from  service  all  such,  and  to 
make  it  a  rule  in  all  future  appointments  that  none  should  receive  or 
hold  office.  This  was  applauded  and  everywhere  received  as  the 
first  bright  gleam  of  that  millenial  glory  that  had  been  so  confidently 
foretold  by  the  friends  of  the  President  during  the  canvass  prior  to 
the  election  of  1828. 

Passing  by  other  examples  of  the  operation  of  this  reform,  I 
refer,  with  unaffected  pain,  to  one  which  lately  occurred  in  my  own 
State.  On  the  8th  of  January  last  a  convention,  under  the  general 
denomination  of  the  "friends  of  the  present  administration,','  assem 
bled  at  Columbus,  in  the  State  of  Ohio.  Its  object  was  to  appoint 
delegates  to  represent  the  "party"  in  a  proposed  national  conven 
tion,  which  was  to  be  convened  in  May,  1835,  to  nominate  a  succes 
sor  to  General  Jackson.  This  convention  of  the  "friends  of  the 
present  administration  "  was  composed  of  one  hundred  and  seventy- 

*  See  Inaugural  Address  of  President  Jackson,  Appendix. 


ON    THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS.  175 

seven  persons.  Of  these  seventy-one  were  office-holders  under  the 
Federal  and  State  Governments.  A  gentleman  holding  the  office  of 
district  judge  for  the  district  of  Ohio  under  appointment  of  the  Pres 
ident,  not  yet  confirmed  by  the  Senate,  in  his  character  of  a  "cen 
tral  committeeman,"  called  a  meeting  (by  advertisement  in  a  public 
newspaper)  of  the  "friends  of  the  administration"  in  a  particular 
county  for  the  purpose  of  naming  delegates  to  this  convention  at 
Columbus.  All  these  things  are  matters  of  public  notoriety.  The 
convention,  among  other  things,  constituted  a  "central  committee," 
with  electioneering  jurisdiction  co-extensive  with  the  territorial  limits 
of  the  State.  Of  this  committee,  composed  (according  to  my  recol 
lection)  of  seven  persons,  five  are  officers  holding  appointments 
under  the  Executive :  One  district  attorney ;  two  receivers  of  public 
moneys ;  one  surveyor  of  the  Virginia  military  lands,  and  one  post 
master. 

The  proceedings  of  this  convention  have  been  published  in  the 
official  journal  in  this  city,  and  cannot  have  escaped  the  notice  of 
the  President.  Can  a  case  be  imagined  more  proper  for  the  applica 
tion  of  that  reform  power  which  the  President  at  his  installation  into 
office  had  promised  the  people  to  exert  with  such  unsparing  fidelity? 
Where  slept  the  executive  thunders  while  these  iniquities  were  trans 
piring?  Has  one  of  those  federal  officers  been  removed,  or  even 
censured,  for  "bringing  the  patronage  and  influence  of  the  Govern 
ment  to  bear  upon  elections?"  No.  All  is  tranquil  and  placid. 
The  arm  of  executive  vengeance  is  not  lifted  against  the  offender. 
The  brow  of  power  is  not  even  clouded  by  a  frown  of  disapproba 
tion.  After  such  forgetfulness,  not  only  of  pledges  given,  but  also 
of  the  expressed  will  of  the  people  derived  from  elections,  in  which 
this  subject  of  official  influence  upon  popular  elections  was  agitated 
all  over  the  Union,  I  cannot  hear  with  patience  the  "people's  will" 
put  forward  as  a  reason  for  violating  law;  taking  away  chartered 
rights ;  deranging  the  currency ;  destroying  trade,  and  sinking  in  the 
great  "Serbonian  bog"  of  "executive  power"  all  the  Constitutional 
functions  of  Congress  and  the  judicial  courts. 

Finding,  after  a  fruitless  search,  no  reason  for  the  act  of  which 
we  complain,  founded  in  law  or  expediency,  or  any  dictate  of  public 
necessity,  but,  on  the  contrary,  finding,  as  the  experiment  has 
evinced,  every  consideration  of  duty  and  patriotism  opposed  to  it, 
how  shall  we  account  for  it?  We  are  driven  to  the  necessity  of  re- 


176  SPEECHES    OP   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

sorting  to  reasons  and  motives  for  the  act,  which  are  not  clearly  set 
forth  in  any  official  document. 

We  know  that  the  President  has,  for  some  two  or  three  years, 
felt  and  expressed  a  deep  and  settled  hostility  to  the  United  States 
Bank.      We  know  that  he  and  his  friends  believed  that  certain  indi 
viduals  connected  with  the  bank  were  not  friendly  to  his  election  and 
did  not  yield  unqualified  approbation  to  some  of  his  public  acts.     A 
resolution,  we  are  told  by  Mr.  Duane,  was  formed  to  crush  this  sup 
posed  opponent ;  Congress,  at  its  last  session,  had  been  appealed  to 
for  this  purpose,  but,  instead  of  adopting  a  course  like  that  taken 
since  by  the  President,  that  body,  composed  of  a  large  majority  of 
his  political  friends,  by  a  vote  of  more  than  two  to  one,  resolved 
that  the  public  moneys  were  safe  in  the  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
and  ought  to  remain  there.    What  was  to  be  done  ?    The  bank  must  be 
crushed,  and  Congress  had  refused  to  become  its  executioner.     Two 
or  three  months  prior  to  the  meeting  of  this  Congress,  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  is  required  to  remove  the    public  moneys  to  the 
State  banks.      He  declined,  and  offered  as  his  reasons  the  vote  of 
the  last  Congress  and  the  near  approach  of  the  meeting  of  this ;  that 
the  subject  properly  belonged  to  Congress,  and  to  them  it  ought  to 
be  submitted.      What  was  the  reply  of  the  President  ?     I  will  give  it 
upon  the  authority  and  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Duane's  letter:      "If  the 
last  Congress    had    remained    a  week    longer    in    session,  two-thirds 
would  have  been  secured  to  the  bank  by  corrupt  means,  and  that  the 
like  result  might  be  apprehended  at  the  next  Congress.     That  such 
a  State  bank  agency  must  be  put  into  operation  before  the  meeting 
of  Congress,  as  would  show  that  the  United  States  Bank  was  not 
necessary ;  and  thus  some  members  would  have  no  excuse  for  voting 
for  it."     I  cannot  here,  sir,  stoop  to  the  consideration  of  these  sug 
gestions  of  corrupt  influence  upon  the  representatives  of  the  people. 
Let  that  people  determine  whether  the   servants  of  their  own  free 
choice  are  capable  of  acting  from  the  diabolical  motives  attributed  to 
them.      I  have  mistaken  the  character  of  my  countrymen,  or  they 
will  treat  such  imputations  upon  the  emanations  of  their  own  en 
lightened  and  free  suffrage  as  the  insane  ravings  of  unchastened  am 
bition,  or  the  equally  idle  suggestions  of  unbridled  revenge.      If  this 
history  of  the  transactions  of  the  last  summer  be  true,  what  is  the 
conclusion?     The  corruptibility  of  Congress  is  imagined  as  a  reason 
for  transferring  their  powers  and  duties  to  the  hands  of  the  Execu 
tive.     Thus,  purity  of  motive  in  the  President  would  apologize  for  a 


ON    THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS.  177 

revolution  of  the  Government.  Sir,  this  is  not  the  first  instance  in 
which  the  fears  and  patriotic  prejudices  of  the  people  have  been  as 
sailed  for  the  purpose  of  effecting  this  favorite  measure — the  destruc 
tion  of  the  bank. 

There  exists  in  the  minds  of  the  American  people  a  watchful 
jealousy  of  foreign  influence  in  our  political  affairs.  Two  years  ago 
this  jealousy  was  roused  to  a  degree  of  fanaticism  that  became  in  its 
height  absolutely  ridiculous.  It  was  found  that  nearly  eight  millions 
of  stock  in  the  United  States  Bank  were  owned  by  foreigners.  I 
shall  not  soon  forget  the  parade  made  in  this  hall  and  elsewhere  of 
the  list  of  names  of  those  foreign  stockholders.  Many  of  them,  it 
was  found,  were  females.  Nothing  could  exceed  the  patriotic  rage 
and  horror  depicted  in  the  fierce  gestures,  distorted  countenances 
and  fervid  declamations  of  those  who  had  all  at  once  discovered  that 
the  liberties  of  America  were  sold  to  the  women  of  England !  Had 
they  been  only  simple,  plain  gentlewomen,  it  seemed  the  danger 
would  not  have  been  so  appalling;  but  there  were  countesses,  mar 
chionesses,  and,  it  was  suspected,  even  a  duchess !  This  was  not  to 
be  borne.  A  countess,  it  was  clear,  could  at  once  put  an  end  to 
State  rights ;  and  a  duchess — a  duchess  could  swallow  the  whole  con 
federacy  at  a  meal !  All  the  foes  of  the  bank,  with  the  President 
himself,  trembled  at  the  peril  which  impended  over  us.  In  the  zeal 
and  fervid  enthusiasm  which  the  occasion  inspired,  these  female 
stockholders  were  depicted  as  a  grizzly  host  of  amazons,  leagued  and 
armed  for  the  destruction  of  the  last  hope  of  liberty;  ready,  and  just 
now  about  to  bear  down  upon  and  crush  us  at  a  blow ;  not  as  their 
renowned  ancestress,  Boadicea  of  old,  made  war  upon  the  legions  of 
Claudius,  with  brand,  and  bill,  and  bow,  and  spear,  and  battle-ax, 
but  with  weapons  more  sharp  and  deadly — with  pounds,  shillings 
and  pence.  A  host  was  marshaled  to  beat  back  this  feminine  inva 
sion.  From  every  quarter,  but  chiefly  from  New  York,  recruits 
thronged  in  thousands  and  took  the  field,  resolved  to  drive  out  this 
foreign  female  invading  foe,  or,  as  became  men,  to  die  in  the  glori 
ous  attempt.  The  President,  as  usual,  took  the  command.  The 
American  eagle  erected  his  head  and  spread  his  wings  abroad,  not 
with  that  glorious  motto,  "E  Pluribus  Unum"  which  had  floated 
with  him  in  triumph  over  many  a  red  field  of  slaughter,  but  with 
another,  which  suited  better  the  character  and  objects  of  the  war. 
Just  under  his  wing,  and  concealed  from  all  but  the  keen  eye  of 
rapacity,  might  be  seen  these  memorable  words — "Spoils  of  Vic- 
13 


178  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

tory."  Thus  bannered  and  equipped,  with  vetoes  for  weapons  and 
"British  booty  and  British  beauty"  for  their  war-cry,  they  took  the 
field.  Who  could  doubt  the  result?  As  was  expected,  the  she-aris 
tocracy  of  England  capitulated  to  the  mailed  chivalry  of  America 
without  risking  a  battle,  and  marched  home  without  loss  of  baggage. 
Have  any  of  us  forgotten  the  shout  of  triumph  that  pealed  over  the 
continent?  "A  nation  was  redeemed  from  the  iron  yoke  of  foreign 
oppression."  Twelve  millions  of  freemen,  just  ready  to  be  sold  for 
eight  millions  of  dollars — just  about  to  be  knocked  off  at  $1.50  a 
head — are  now  forever  free !  But,  alas !  who  can  fathom  the  depths 
of  the  future?  Who  could  have  foreseen  the  sad  reverses  that  were 
to  befall  this  victorious  host?  In  the  agitations  of  this  war  upon  for 
eign  capital,  commerce  furled  up  her  sail ;  the  hand  of  industry  was 
paralyzed ;  labor  wanted  employment,  and  public  credit  shivered  on 
the  brink  of  bankruptcy.  Now  the  scene  changes !  Where  nowT  is 
that  American  eagle  so  lately  flying  in  triumph  over  the  ranks  of 
war?  His  wing  folded  up,  his  eye  glazed  and  sunk  with  hunger, 
you  send  him  abroad  to  peck  and  beg  about  the  den  of  the  British 
lion,  for  a  morsel  that  may  fall  from  the  jaws  of  the  royal  beast,  to 
keep  him  alive.  Pennsylvania  begs  of  the  foreign  banker,  Roths 
child,  a  few  millions  to  pay  her  honest  debts ;  and  New  York,  fore 
most  in  the  \var  against  foreign  capital  and  foreign  influence,  offers  a 
mortgage  of  her  state  to  those  very  old  women  of  England  for  six 
millions  of  foreign  gold  to  make  safe  her  "safety  fund."  Sir,  I 
hope,  nay,  I  doubt  not,  they  will  succeed.  These  fierce  countesses 
and  fat  duchesses  will  relent  and  yield  them  the  desired  boon.  The 
chivalry,  so  lately  displayed  by  those  who  solicit  it,  must  prevail,  for 
valor  is  ever  potent  to  subdue  the  obduracy  of  the  female  heart.  To 
this  ridiculous  issue  have  come  the  outcry  and  war  waged  against 
foreign  capital.  It  would  be  a  tempting  theme  for  pleasantry,  were 
it  not  associated  with  misfortune,  disaster  and  ruin  to  a  confiding 
and  deceived  community.  Strange  as  it  may  seem,  those  events  in 
human  affairs  which  often  excite  laughter  and  ridicule,  are  intimately 
associated  with  those  that  smite  the  spirits  of  rnen  with  grief  and 
dismay. 

"  Res  omnes  sunt  humanae,  flebile  ludibrium." 

It  is  in  no  spirit  of  contest,  but  with  a  sincere  desire  to  bring 
the  judgment  of  the  House  to  that  which  I  conceive  to  be  the  only 
point  necessary  to  decide,  that  I  design  to  offer  as  a  substitute  for 
the  resolution  on  the  table  the  following: 


ON    THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS. 


179 


"RESOLVED,  That  the  reasons  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  for  the  removal 
of  the  public  deposits  from  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  are  insufficient,  and  that  it 
is  inexpedient  to  enact  any  law  authorizing  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  deposit  the 
public  moneys  in  the  State  banks." 

The  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  have  not  thought  proper 
to  present  this  question  to  the  House.  Instead  of  a  decision  of  the 
House  upon  this  point,  which  it  is  clearly  our  duty  to  make  under 
the  law,  the  committee  have  presented  a  variety  of  abstractions, 
tending  to  no  practical  ends.  Should  the  vote  of  the  House  disap 
prove  the  reasons  of  the  Secretary,  his  course  cannot  be  mistaken. 
He  must  restore  to  the  United  States  Bank  what  he  has  taken  from 
it,  or  he  must  "put  his  house  in  order." 

After  all  that  has  or  can  be  said  concerning  a  remedy  for  the 
evil  that  is  now  preying  upon  the  country,  I  have  been  unable  to  see 
or  think  of  anything  which  promises  success  but  an  immediate  halt 
in  our  march  to  destruction,  and,  as  speedily  as  possible,  a  return  to 
the  point  from  which  we  set  out.  When  you  find  yourselves  in  a 
course  of  ruin,  does  not  wisdom  require  you  to  retrace  your  steps? 

Sir,  notwithstanding  the  confidence  of  the  majority  here  in  its 
strength,  I  yet  hope  to  see  it  take  counsel  of  prudence.  The  eyes 
of  the  people  have  been  opened  to  the  true  cause  of  their  sufferings. 
Two  months  ago  it  was  asserted  by  the  supporters  of  the  executive 
measures  that  the  war  upon  the  bank,  begun  two  years  ago  and  con 
summated  last  October,  had  brought  no  ill  consequences  to  the  peo 
ple.  The  loud  and  incessant  cry  from  all  quarters,  that  has  been 
pouring  in  upon  us  since  the  session  began,  can  now  no  longer  be 
misunderstood.  In  this  dilemma,  the  distress  of  the  country  being 
admitted,  we  are  told  it  is  all  chargeable  to  the  oppressive  conduct 
of  the  bank. 

I  must  beg  the  attention  of  gentlemen  who  assume  this  position 
to  a  report  of  the  bank  which  came  to  us  yesterday ;  it  contains  a 
statement  of  facts,  denied  by  no  one,  which  must  put  at  rest  forever 
all  further  accusation  against  that  abused  institution.  It  shows  that, 
instead  of  curtailing  its  accommodations  below  the  amount  withdrawn 
from  its  resources,  it  has,  within  the  last  six  months,  increased  those 
accommodations  by  nearly  three  millions  of  dollars,  in  proportion  to 
its  means.  To  be  accurate,  the  account  stands  thus : 

Public  and  private  deposits  withdrawn  between  1st  October,  1833, 

and  1st  April,  1834, $7,788,403 

Reduction  of  loans  within  the  same  period, 5,057,527 

Difference, $2,730,876 


180  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

By  this  plain  tale,  the  oft-refuted  story  of  the  tyranny  of  the 
bank  is  at  once  "put  down."  The  bank,  during  the  whole  of  that 
scene  of  confusion  and  bankruptcy  which  was  begun  by  the  Execu 
tive  in  the  recess  of  Congress,  has  been  straining  all  her  energies  to 
mitigate  the  force  of  the  blow  aimed  at  her,  but  which  fell  with  fatal 
effect  upon  the  country. 

By  the  same  report  gentlemen  may  learn  why  it  is,  at  this  mo 
ment,  so  many  of  their  favorite  State  banks  are  alive.  During  the 
six  months  past,  the  State  banks  have  been  indebted  to  the  United 
States  Bank  in  the  average  amount  of  three  millions  and  a  half  of 
dollars.  They  might  have  been  called  upon  at  any  moment  for  this 
sum.  In  mercy  to  them  it  has  not  been  done.  Yet  it  has  been  as 
serted  here,  and  the  presses  devoted  to  the  administration  have  been 
loud  and  constant  in  their  assertions,  that  the  United  States  Bank 
was  curtailing  its  loans  to  merchants,  bringing,  in  this  way,  bank 
ruptcy  upon  its  debtors;  that  it  was  laboring  to  crush  the  State 
banks  by  the  same  means ;  all  in  order  to  extort  from  Congress  a  re 
newal  of  its  charter. 

The  country  is  beginning  to  look  to  the  origin  of  the  evils  that 
afflict  it.  It  sees  that  those  who  have  been  exerting  power  (if  the 
conduct  of  the  Executive  deserves  so  mild  a  designation)  are  the 
real  authors  of  the  universally  prevalent  distress  of  which  they  com 
plain.  The  country  now  knows  that  the  bank,  instead  of  causing  or 
increasing  this  distress,  has  been  endeavoring  to  mitigate  its  severity. 

All  that  has  happened  from  the  ruinous  policy  of  the  executive 
was  foretold  and  the  advisors  of  this  fatal  measure  were  warned 
against  it.  They  were  warned  by  the  opinion  of  practical  honest 
men  everywhere,  who  dared  to  speak  truth,  even  to  the  unwilling 
ear  of  power.  The  President,  however,  and  his  Secretary  heeded 
not  their  advice,  but  gave  their  ears  and  understandings  to  the  keep 
ing  of  visionary  empirics  who  knew  not,  nor,  it  seems,  cared  what 
ills  their  pernicious  counsels  might  bring  upon  the  country.  While 
merchants,  boards  of  trade  and  chambers  of  commerce  all  foresaw 
and  foretold  the  consequences  to  our  trade  and  currency,  likely  to 
flow  from  the  act  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  long  before  it 
had  been  consummated,  some  financial  quack  was  at  work  with  his 
arithmetical  quantities  and  algebraic  equations,  showing  the  Presi 
dent,  by  "demonstration,"  that  "the  removal  of  five  millions  from 
bank  A  to  bank  B  could  result  in  nothing  but  simply  a  change  of 
locality." 


ON    THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS.  181 

This  problem  was  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  cabinet  lucubra 
tion  on  this  subject.  It  is  humiliating  to  compare  the  unpardonable 
ignorance  of  those  in  power,  of  the  practical  business  concerns  of 
the  country,  with  the  clear  foresight  on  the  same  subjects  possessed 
by  men  in  very  humble  stations,  to  be  found  all  over  this  Union. 
It  reminds  me  forcibly  of  an  observation,  upon  a  kindred  subject,  by 
one  of  the  profoundest  political  philosophers  of  the  last  age.  *  He 
observed  that  he  had  often  known  merchants  with  the  sentiments 
and  abilities  of  great  statesmen,  and  had  seen  persons  in  the  rank  of 
statesmen  with  the  conceptions  and  characters  of  peddlers ;  that  he 
had  found  nothing  in  any  habits  of  life  or  education  which  tended 
wholly  to  disqualify  men  for  the  functions  of  Government,  but  that 
by  which  the  power  of  exercising  these  functions  is  often  acquired. 
"I  mean,"  says  he,  "a  mean  spirit,  and  habits  of  low  cabal  and  in 
trigue,  which  I  have  never  seen,  in  one  instance,  united  with  a  ca 
pacity  for  sound  and  manly  policy."  Let  the  people,  who  feel  the 
unhappy  results  of  a  single  error  of  the  Executive,  determine  where 
the  statesmen  and  where  the  peddlers  of  this  nation  are  to  be  found. 

I  have  heard  gentlemen  from  various  quarters  of  the  Union  de 
scribe  the  blighting  effects  of  the  policy  lately  adopted  upon  their 
respective  vicinities.  I  am  fully  persuaded  that  no  portion  of  the 
country  can  feel  this  blight  more  intensely  than  the  young  States  of 
the  West.  The  simplest  principles  ol  political  economy  will  satisfy 
gentlemen  that  I  am  not  mistaken  in  this  opinion.  I  wish,  sir,  that 
every  man  entitled  to  a  vote,  west  ol  the  Alleghenies,  had  a  copy  of 
the  speech  ot  the  gentleman  from  Georgia  [MR.  WILDE].  That 
clear  and  powerful  analysis  of  the  laws  of  currency,  with  those  large 
and  comprehensive  views  of  our  present  condition,  which  do  equal 
honor  to  the  head  and  heart  of  my  honorable  friend,  cannot  fail  to 
be  read  and  studied  with  advantage,  and  by  the  philosopher  not  less 
than  the  peasant. 

Trade  cannot  be  carried  on  without  capital ;  capital  is  the  grad 
ual  accumulation  of  labor  and  enterprise.  Old  countries,  where 
labor  is  unfettered,  will,  therefore,  abound  in  surplus  capital,  while 
in  new  countries  it  cannot  exist  to  any  extent,  since  time  has  not 
been  there  given  for  its  accumulation.  Throughout  the  great  valley, 
stretching  from  the  sources  of  the  Ohio  to  the  Missouri,  now  filled 
with  a  hardy  and  laborious  population,  you  have  a  soil  teeming  with 

*  Edmund  Burke. 


182  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

production.  What  avail  the  labor  of  the  husbandman  and  the  fer 
tility  of  the  earth,  if  capital  is  wanting  to  buy  and  transport  to  mar 
ket  the  annual  products  of  both  ?  The  labor  of  all  that  population, 
up  to  this  time,  has  been  expended  in  paying  for  the  land  it  tills, 
and,  by  culture  and  improvement,  increasing  its  production.  The 
Bank  of  the  United  States  has  furnished  the  West  with  a  capital 
which  it  wanted,  for  which  it  languished,  and  which  it  must  again 
want,  if  that  bank  be  compelled  soon  to  close  its  business  and  with 
draw  its  capital. 

Two  years  ago  we  were  told,  in  the  President's  veto  message, 
that  the  West  must  become  bankrupt  by  paying  six  per  cent,  inter 
est  on  the  debt  it  owed  the  United  States  Bank.  How  was  that 
debt  created?  By  a  loan  from  the  bank,  of  its  money,  at  six  per 
cent,  per  annum.  This  money  was  employed  in  trade;  in  buying 
and  transporting  to  market  the  products  of  the  country.  I  speak 
from  actual  knowledge  when  I  say  that  I  have  known  large  amounts 
of  money  borrowed  from  individuals  at  ten  per  cent,  interest  and 
employed  in  purchasing,  for  speculation,  the  agricultural  productions 
of  the  Miami  valley.  I  know  that  money  thus  loaned  has  been  prof 
itably  expended  in  this  trade;  that  borrowers  have  often  realized 
handsome  profits  on  capital  thus  loaned  and  thus  employed.  The 
difference  between  six  and  ten  per  cent,  which  is  paid  for  the  use  of 
the  money  thus  employed,  is  lost,  not  by  the  purchaser,  but  by  the 
farmer  who  sells  the  property  thus  purchased. 

Again:  The  effect  of  the  withdrawal  of  the  United  States 
Bank  from  the  West  will  be  to  open  the  office  and  re-instate  the  bus 
iness  of  the  broker.  The  money  in  circulation  there  will,  as  even 
now,  within  the  last  month,  it  does,  rate  at  a  discount  of  from  two 
to  ten  per  cent,  in  the  Eastern  cities. 

This  will  be  the  currency  received  by  the  farmer  and  mechanic 
for  the  products  of  their  farms  and  workshops. 

The  merchant,  who  sells  his  goods  to  them,  must  pay  for  those 
goods  in  the  Atlantic  cities,  in  a  currency  at  par  there.  He,  of 
course,  makes  his  customers,  the  farmers  and  mechanics,  pay  him, 
in  the  increased  price  of  his  goods,  the  two  or  ten  per  cent,  which 
he  will  have  to  give  on  the  money  he  receives,  in  order  to  procure 
such  funds  as  will  pay  his  debt  to  the  merchants  in  Philadelphia  or 
New  York.  The  withdrawal,  then,  of  the  capital  of  the  bank  which 
has  been  constantly  employed  in  facilitating  domestic  exchanges, 
will,  by  diminishing  competition,  increase  the  profits  of  the  broker. 


ON   THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS.  183 

Those  profits,  made  by  large  capitalists,  when  they  swell  to  an  un 
reasonable  extent,  are  a  clear  loss  to  the  laboring  and  producing 
classes. 

The  West  will  be  a  peculiar  sufferer  under  this  policy  in  another 
and  by  no  means  the  least  deleterious  of  its  consequences.  All  the 
revenues  of  the  Federal  Government  are  derived  from  impost  duties 
on  foreign  goods  and  from  the  sales  of  public  lands.  The  consumer 
of  the  goods  on  which  the  impost  is  laid  pays  the  duty.  No  por 
tion  of  the  population  of  the  Union,  in  proportion  to  its  numbers, 
consumes  more  of  those  articles  subject  to  duty  than  the  people  of 
the  West.  They,  therefore,  contribute,  from  the  earnings  of  their 
labor,  the  full  proportion  of  the  common  revenue  derived  from  im 
posts.  The  three  millions  annually  paid  for  lands  is  received  wholly 
from  the  Western  and  Southwestern  States.  A  proportion  of  this 
revenue  suited  to  the  business  of  the  country  has  been  left  hereto 
fore  in  the  United  States  Bank  in  the  West,  to  be  employed  as  so 
much  capital  by  our  own  citizens.  This  office  your  State  banks,  as 
the  experiment  has  proved,  can  never  perform  for  them.  Their  rev 
enue  will  be  poured  into  the  laps  of  the  Atlantic  cities.  How  are 
they  to  be  expended  by  the  Government?  Internal  improvement,  it 
was  once  hoped,  might  be  the  means  of  expending  some  portion  of 
it  in  the  West ;  but  that  system,  by  the  interposition  of  the  Presi 
dent's  veto  power,  is  destroyed.  Your  whole  revenue  (of  which,  as 
I  have  shown,  the  West  pays  its  full  proportion)  will  be  expended 
in  harbors,  arsenals,  fortifications  and  dock-yards  on  the  seaboard, 
and  circulate  there  for  the  benefit  of  the  Atlantic  States  alone.  In 
such  a  system  there  is  no  equity,  no  equality  of  burden  and  benefit. 
If  as  I  have  shown,  the  States  of  the  West  are  to  suffer  more 
than  any  other  great  geographical  divisions  of  the  confederacy,  Ohio 
(my  own  State),  of  all  the  West,  will  suffer  most  from  the  reduction 
cf  prices  and  stagnation  of  trade.  She  is  one  of  those  who,  accord 
ing  to  the  President's  opinion,  "ought  to  break;"  she  has  "traded 
on  borrowed  capital."  She  has  borrowed,  and  now  owes,  five  mill 
ions  of  dollars.  With  this  money  she  has,  with  an  enterprise  unsur 
passed  in  the  ancient  or  modern  history  of  any  community,  executed 
a  great  work  of  internal  improvement,  which  should  have  been  done 
long  since  at  the  expense  of  the  whole  Union.  Her  four  hundred 
miles  of  canal  has  poured  the  waters  of  the  great  lakes  of  the  North 
into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Ohio  must  look  for  a  fund  to  pay  the  in 
terest  on  this  debt  thus  contracted  to  the  tolls  collected  on  her  canals. 


184  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

The  amount  of  those  tolls  must  depend  on  the  trade  of  the  country. 
If  prices  fall  and  trade  languish  (as  we  know  they  have  and  will  yet 
still  more  unless  we  stop  short  in  our  present  experiment)  the  labor 
ing  people  of  Ohio  will  find  their  taxes  increased.  The  interest  on 
their  canal  debt  must  be  paid,  and  what  the  tolls  do  not  pay  must  be 
raised  in  taxes  on  the  people.  Thus,  while  your  cruel  policy  dimin 
ishes  the  price  of  every  article  produced  by  the  farmer  and  mechanic, 
and  thus  diminishes  their  ability  to  pay,  it  increases  the  tax  and 
swells  the  demands  upon  them.  You  starve  the  slave  and  yet 
increase  his  labor;  you  increase  the  burden  of  the  people,  and  at 
the  same  time  reduce  the  strength  required  to  bear  it.  What  can 
the  people  of  the  West  see  (if  this  new  system  is  to  prevail)  in  the 
prospect  before  them?  Nothing  but  ruin  to  their  trade,  paralysis  to 
their  industry,  and,  worst  of  all,  that  host  of  vice  and  crime  which 
will  spring  up  everywhere  when  labor  has  no  incentive,  industry  no 
adequate  reward. 

Have  the  people  of  that  portion  of  your  country  deserved  this 
at  your  hands?  Instead  of  extending  a  parental  regard  to  them, 
you  have  abandoned  them  to  premature  orphanage  and  cold  neglect. 
Is  there  anything  in  their  history  that  merits  this?  Less  than  fifty 
years  ago,  urged  on  by  enterprise  or  necessity,  the  first  settlers 
plunged  into  the  western  wilderness.  For  many  years  every  cabin 
was  a  fort — every  cornfield  a  camp.  Every  night  the  husband  and 
father,  with  arms  in  his  hands,  guarded  the  slumbers  of  his  wife  and 
children.  At  every  sound  that  broke  upon  the  stillness  of  the  sur 
rounding  woods,  the  wakeful  mother  clasped  her  infant  closer  to  her 
breast  and  breathed  a  silent  prayer  for  protection  to  "Him  with 
whom  mercy  sits  at  the  right  hand  and  judgment  at  the  left."  If 
they  assembled  to  worship  God,  it  was  in  the  woods,  upon  the  hill 
side,  or  in  the  deep  valley.  There,  still,  they  were  girt  round  with 
peril  and  war.  The  song  of  praise  was  often  interrupted  by  the  yell 
of  the  Indian  warrior,  rushing  from  his  ambush  to  bathe  the  scalping- 
knife  and  tomahawk  in  the  white  man's  blood. 

That  savage  foe  has  fled  before  their  advancing  enterprise,  until 
the  receding  echoes  of  his  warwhoop  are  now  borne  upon  the  blast 
that  sweeps  across  the  great  prairies  of  the  farthest  West;  a  little 
while  and  they  will  be  drowned  forever  in  the  roar  of  the  Pacific. 

The  people  of  the  Western  States  are  just  beginning  to  realize 
the  fruits  of  years  of  privation  and  toil.  They  have  not  expected 
the  cup  to  be  dashed  from  their  lips.  They  understand,  for  they 


ON    THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS.  185 

have  already  felt,  the   consequences  of  the  late    movement  of  the 
Executive  on  the  currency  and  trade  of  the  country. 

They  have  had,  in  their  recent  history,  some  knowledge  of  that 
sort  of  currency  which  depends  on  and  comes  from  State  banks. 
They  will  not  be  satisfied  with  your  ingenious  speculations  as  to 
what  will  be — they  have  made  a  terrible  experiment,  exactly  like 
that  you  now  propose  to  make,  and  they  know  what  they  have  suf 
fered  and  lost ;  they  are  unwilling  to  surrender  the  wisdom  learned 
by  experience  to  the  theories  of  any  one. 

While  we  deplore  the  irreparable  mischiefs  that  follow  to  the 
interest  of  those  we  represent,  from  the  unexpected  change  lately 
wrought  in  our  financial  system,  let  me,  in  conclusion,  beseech  gen 
tlemen  to  look  to  that  power,  hitherto  unknown  in  our  political  his 
tory,  by  which  the  President  alone  has  effected  that  change. 

How  has  thai:  power  revealed  to  us  its  tremendous  energies 
within  the  last  six  months?  The  President  has  obtained  uncon 
trolled  possession  of  the  public  treasure  in  the  recess  of  Congress,  and, 
by  this  bold  maneuver,  he  has,  with  the  aid  of  his  veto  power,  placed 
it  beyond  the  power  of  Congress  to  reclaim  their  lost  rights,  unless  a 
majority  of  two-thirds  of  both  branches  shall  unite  in  opposition  to 
him.  When  we  see  the  rights  of  the  Legislature  thus  invaded,  it  is 
natural  to  inquire,  what  great  good  has  been  achieved  ?  What  fear 
ful  evil  impending  over  us  has  been  averted  by  it  ?  Has  the  Amer 
ican  dictator,  like  the  Roman,  "taken  care  that  no  detriment  should 
come  to  the  republic?"  No ;  the  exact  reverse  is  the  truth. 

He  has  taken  your  whole  treasure  from  the  custody  where,  it  is 
admitted,  it  was  perfectly  secure,  and  placed  it  in  the  keeping  of 
State  banks,  where  we  are  not  sure  it  is  safe  for  the  passing  hour. 
In  doing  all  this,  he  boasts  that  he  crushed  the  United  States  Bank ; 
that  he  has,  in  the  hyperbolical  language  of  his  friends,  "  strangled  a 
monster !  "  In  the  true  stlye  of  the  mock-heroic,  the  fabulous  ex 
ploits  of  Hercules  are  put  forward  as  parallel  achievements.  Mean 
time,  in  destroying  one  bank,  he  has  given  life  and  perpetual  exist 
ence  to  one  hundred  other  banks. 

He  crushes  one  serpent,  and,  at  the  same  moment,  he  places  in 
the  vitals  of  the  State  innumerable  knots  and  endless  involutions  of 
hungry  tape-worms  to  gorge  their  ravening  and  insatiable  maws  upon 
the  very  sources  of  life. 

It  was  the  idle  vaunt  of  a  renowned  general,  in  the  declining 
period  of  the  Roman  republic,  "that  he  could  call  up  armed  legions 


186  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

with  the  stamp  of  his  foot."  Sir,  we  have  lived  to  see  the  acts  of 
one  man  produce  phenomena  more  appalling  than  the  reality  of  the 
proud  Roman's  boast. 

We  have  seen  the  "Executive"  ministerial  officer  of  the  most 
limited  Government  on  earth  expand  the  mere  emblem  of  authority 
into  the  amplitude  of  kingly  prerogative,  and,  of  his  own  will,  com 
municate  to  it  the  strength  and  vigor  of  imperial  sway.  Thus 
armed  he  grasps  with  his  own  hand  the  wealth  and  energies  of  a 
nation's  commerce;  and  in  a  day  they  wither  into  imbecile  bank 
ruptcy  in  his  clutch.  With  this  same  power  he  enters  the  humble 
dwelling  of  the  laboring  poor  man,  or  the  neat  mansion  of  the 
industrious  mechanic ;  he  sees  there  well-rewarded  industry  shedding 
smiles,  and  plenty,  and  innocent  contentment  upon  a  cheerful,  happy 
family.  At  the  wave  of  his  hand  this  vision  of  happiness  disap 
pears,  and  in  its  place  come  want  and  poverty  and  squalid  misery 
and  woe.  Look  back  over  the  whole  history  of  your  government. 
Do  you  find  in  it  any  executive  power  approaching  to  this  ?  No ;  to 
find  authority  for  this  searching  and  overshadowing  tyranny,  you 
must  go  to  the  groaning  monarchies  of  Europe.  English  history, 
and  not  your  own,  will -furnish  you  with  such  examples  of  "execu 
tive  power."  Consult  the  reigns  of  the  crafty  Plantagenets  —  the 
obstinate  and  tyrannical  Tudors ;  read  the  bloody  annals  of  the  mis 
guided  Stuarts;  there,  and  there  only,  will  you  find  examples  to 
compare  with  the  last  six  months  of  our  history. 

I  entreat  gentlemen  to  look  out  upon  the  country.  You  see 
the  poor  and  the  rich  thronging  to  the  capital  for  relief.  They 
repair  to  the  President's  mansion ;  its  doors  are  rudely  closed  against 
them.  A  President,  elected  by  the  people,  refuses  to  see  and  confer 
with  them  in  the  extremity  of  their  distress — distress  brought  on 
them  by  his  own  act.  The  voice  of  absolute  power  bids  them  "go 
home;"  they  are  only  permitted  to  approach  the  throne  through  the 
cold  and  imperfect  medium  of  written  communication.  Driven  from 
thence,  they  come  here — here,  to  their  own  immediate  servants. 
How  are  they  treated  in  this  House?  An  inflexible  and  proud 
majority  denounces  their  assertions  as  falsehood — their  opinions  as 
folly.  A  press,  devoted  to  power  all  over  the  country,  answers  to 
the  universal  wail  of  distress  with  grinning  ribaldry  and  sneering 
scorn.  Sir,  if  the  lessons  of  past  ages  are  not  fables  and  all  history 
a  lie ;  if  the  whole  theory  of  your  government  be  not  based  upon 
fiction,  we  shall  soon  see  the  collected  energies  of  an  aggrieved, 


ON    THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS.  187 

insulted  people  forcing  their  influence  upon  this  hall.  That  influence 
will  be  felt  here,  where  every  pulsation  must  answer  to  the  throb  of 
public  feeling.  You  will  feel  this,  not  in  that  might  that  slumbers 
in  a  freeman's  arm,  but  in  that  fierce  indignation  which  sleeps  not, 
nor  slumbers  in  the  freeman's  bosom  so  long  as  he  feels  the  cold  iron 
of  oppression  entering  into  his  soul.  Mr.  Speaker,  I  have  done. 
The  proofs  of  our  misguided  policy  thicken  upon  us  every  hour.  A 
blasted  monument  of  it  at  this  moment  stands,  with  empty  vaults 
and  closed  doors,  *  in  view  from  the  windows  of  this  hall.  If  all 
these  will  not  avail  to  change  the  stern  resolves  of  the  majority  here, 
then  I  warn  that  majority  to  take  counsel  of  their  selfish  fears ;  let 
them  remember  the  admonition  of  Holy  Writ: — "Pride  goeth 
before  destruction,  and  a  haughty  spirit  before  a  fall." 


APPENDIX. 

EXTRACT  FROM  GEN.  JACKSON'S  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS,  MARCH  4,  1829. 

"The  recent  demonstration  of  public  sentiment  inscribes  on  the  list  of  executive 
duties,  in  characters  too  legible  to  be  overlooked,  the  task  of  reform,  which  will  require 
particularly  the  correction  of  those  abuses  that  have  brought  the  patronage  of  the  Fed 
eral  Government  into  conflict  with  the  freedom  of  elections,  and  the  counteraction  of 
those  causes  which  have  disturbed  the  rightful  course  of  appointment,  and  have  placed 
or  continued  power  in  unfaithful  or  incompetent  hands." 


EXTRACT    FROM    MR.    JEFFERSON'S    CIRCULAR,    PUBLISHED    AND    ADDRESSED   TO 
THE  VARIOUS  OFFICERS  OF  THE  GOVERNMENT  UNDER  HIS  ADMINISTRATION. 

"The  President  of  the  United  States  has  seen,  with  dissatisfaction,  officers  of  the 
General  Government  taking,  on  various  occasions,  active  parts  in  the  election  of  public 
functionaries,  whether  of  the  General  or  State  Governments.  Freedom  of  elections  be 
ing  essential  to  the  mutual  independence  of  Government,  and  of  the  different  branches 
of  the  same  Government,  so  vitally  cherished  by  most  of  our  Constitutions,  it  is  deemed 
improper  for  officers  depending  on  the  Executive  of  the  Union  to  attempt  to  control  or 
influence  the  free  exercise  of  the  elective  right;  and  further,  it  is  expected  that  he  (the 
officer)  will  not  attempt  to  influence  the  votes  of  others,  nor  to  take  any  part  in  the 
business  of  electioneering,  that  being  deemed  inconsistent  with  the  Constitution  and 
his  duties  to  it." 


The  following  is  a  statement  of  the  amount  of  bank  capital  incorporated  since 
1832,  derived  from  the  best  sources  of  information.  It  is  doubtless,  if  incorrect  at  all, 
below  the  true  amount.  It  shows  how  rapidly  we  are  going  on  to  banish  bank  paper 

*  The  Bank  of  Washington.  Three  other  banks  in  the  District  stopped  payment 
in  a  few  days  afterward. 


188  SPEECHES  OF  THOMAS  CORWIN. 

from  our  currency.  There  are  now  (including  the  following)  about  five  hundred  State 
banks  in  operation.  Yet  we  are  gravely  told  that  if  we  put  down  the  United  States 
Bank,  we  shall  at  once  restore  gold  and  silver  currency,  and  get  rid  of  paper  altogether: 

Maine, $  100,000 

Vermont, 600,000 

Rhode  Island, 1,000,000 

Connecticut, 600,000 

New  Jersey, 100,000 

New  York, 4,000,000 

Pennsylvania, 4,400,000 

Maryland, 500,000 

North  Carolina, 2,800,000 

South  Carolina, 500,000 

Mississippi, 700,000 

Louisiana, ,     .     .     .     .       12,000,000 

Tennessee, 5,000,000 

Kentucky, 5,000,000 

Ohio,        4,000,000 

Indiana, 1,000,000 


$42,900,000 

Mr.  Corwin,  at  the  conclusion  of  his  speech,  moved  to  amend 
the  resolution  by  striking  out  all  after  "Resolved,"  and  insert  in  lieu 
thereof  the  following: 

"That  the  reasons  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  for  the  removal  of  the  public 
deposits  from  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  are  insufficient,  and  that  it  is  inexpedient 
to  enact  a  law  requiring  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  deposit  the  public  moneys  in 
the  State  banks." 


MEMORIALS   IN   RELATION   TO   THE 
PUBLIC  DEPOSITS. 


IN  April,  1834,  a  period  when  a  large  portion  of  the  people  were  deeply  excited 
in  consequence  of  the  removal  of  the  Public  Deposits  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
(MR.  TANEY)  MR.  CORVVIN  presented  in  Congress  two  memorials  from  citizens  of  War 
ren  and  Clinton  counties,  Ohio,  upon  the  financial  embarrassments  of  the  day. 
Although  his  remarks  on  those  several  occasions  are  brief,  they  state  the  object  of  the 
memorialists  so  fully,  and  contain  such  a  well-expressed  and  well-deserved  compliment 
to  that  portion  of  his  constituents,  that  it  would  not  be  just  either  to  him  or  to 
them,  if  they  were  omitted  in  this  compilation. 

MR.  SPEAKER: 

I  am  charged  with  the  presentation  to  this  House  of  a  memor 
ial,  signed  by  about  two  thousand  of  the  inhabitants  of  a  single 
county  of  the  district  I  have  the  honor  to  represent.  By  reference 
to  the  names  and  designations  of  occupations  affixed  to  them  it  will 
be  seen  that  they  are  composed  of  farmers,  merchants  and  a  great 
variety  of  those  engaged  in  mechanical  pursuits.  They  are  emi 
grants,  or  the  descendants  of  emigrants,  from  every  State  in  the 
Union  and  present  in  many  respects  a  faithful  miniature  picture  of 
the  manners,  habits,  tastes  and  opinions  of  the  whole  American  pop 
ulation.  They  are  generally  in  that  condition  for  which  a  pious  and 
wise  one  of  old  so  fervently  prayed — they  are  neither  rich  nor  poor, 
but  in  that  happy  medium  between  the  extremes  of  poverty  and 
wealth  which  philosophy  had  taught  and  all  experience  proved  to  be 
most  favorable  to  the  cultivation  of  that  only  true  dignity  of  charac 
ter,  a  modest  yet  manly  independence  of  thought  and  action.  They 
inhabit  the  most  fertile  portion  of  the  Miami  valley,  a  district  of 
country  remarkable  for  its  exuberant  production  of  those  heavy  arti 
cles  of  subsistence  that  are  everywhere  regarded  as  the  necessaries  of 
life.  For  these,  the  only  subjects  of  export  trade  in  that  country, 
the  memorialists  have  usually  found  markets  through  the  Ohio  and 
Mississippi  rivers  in  the  South,  and  lately  through  the  Ohio  canals 
and  the  lakes  in  the  North — markets  which  have  yielded  an  encour- 

(189) 


190  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

aging  reward  to  their  industry;  I  say,  sir,  their  industry,  for  in  that 
country  almost  every  man  engaged  in  agricultural  pursuits  wields  his 
own  sickle  and  scythe  and  plows  with  alacrity  his  own  fields.  I  may 
say,  without  exaggeration,  that  they  have  a  country  and  population 
that  ( if  need  should  be )  could  realize  the  boast  of  the  better  days 
of  the  English  commonwealth,  when  "every  rood  of  ground  main 
tained  its  man."  Many  of  these  memorialists  came  to  that  country 
while  the  wandering  and  marauding  Indian  tribes  held  there  a 
divided  empire  with  the  arts  and  enterprise  of  civilized  life.  They 
have  lived,  in  half  the  length  of  years  allotted  to  the  life  of  man,  to 
see  the  then  unbroken  forest  disappear  and  rich  plantations,  covered 
with  luxuriant  crops,  rise  up  in  its  place.  The  Bank  of  the  United 
States  has,  for  the  last  fifteen  years,  furnished  a  capital  for  their  trade 
and  a  currency  which  represented  truly  the  exchangeable  value  of 
their  property.  This  currency,  always  as  good  as  gold  or  silver 
coin,  is  now  rapidly  disappearing,  and  the  paper  of  State  banks, 
having  an  estimated  value  never  equal  to  its  nominal  amount,  as  rap 
idly  taking  its  place.  Experience,  (that  sure,  but,  in  these  times, 
too  much  neglected  teacher,)  dearly  bought,  almost  fatal,  experience, 
has  taught  them  that  this  last  cannot  subsist  without  some  power 
stronger  than  charter  stipulations  to  regulate  and  control  it.  In  the 
present  state  of  affairs  they  look  with  fearful  anticipations  to  that 
ruinous  condition  in  which  the  establishment  of  the  United  States 
Bank  found  them,  and  from  which  the  excellent  administration  of  its 
functions,  as  a  regulator  of  currency,  redeemed  them.  Without  this 
institution  they  expect  to  see  again  currencies  of  different  values 
in  different  parts  of  the  Union,  with  a  difference  of  exchange  operat 
ing,  as  it  once  did,  as  a  tax,  varying  from  two  to  ten  per  cent.,  on 
every  article  they  buy  from  the  Atlantic  cities.  They  expect  to  see 
State  banks  all  over  the  country  sinking  into  hopeless  insolvency, 
leaving  immense  amounts  of  their  paper  worthless,  in  possession  of 
those  who  have  earned  it  with  the  labor  of  their  own  hands.  They 
already  feel  the  baneful  influence  of  a  deranged  and  vicious  currency 
in  the  depression  of  prices  and  general  stagnation  of  trade.  They 
see  in  that  paralysis  which  has  benumbed  the  great  mercantile  cities 
of  the  North  and  Southwest,  the  near  and  sure  approach  of  ruin  to 
themselves — for  they  look  to  those  great  hearts  of  trade  for  the  life- 
blood  which  is  to  nourish  the  industry  and  enterprise  of  that  rich 
interior  of  which  they  are  a  part. 

These  memorialists  believe  that  the  evils,  present  and  prospect- 


MEMORIALS    ON    THE    PUBLIC    DEPOSITS.  191 

ive,  of  which  they  complain,  are  to  be  traced  to  the  late  act  of  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  withholding  the  revenues  of  the  coun 
try,  the  money  of  the  people,  from  the  United  States  Bank,  where 
it  had  been  heretofore  safely  kept  and  usefully  employed.  They 
assert  what  is  now  conceded  by  all,  that  the  money  of  the  Govern 
ment  and  people  was  safe  in  the  custody  of  the  United  States  Bank, 
and  fear  that  it  is  not  so  in  the  State  banks  that  now  have  it.  They 
insist  that  as  the  safety  of  the  public  treasure  in  the  United  States 
Bank  is  not  denied,  and  as  the  bank  has  performed  faithfully  the 
duties  pertaining  to  its  fiscal  agency,  that  the  withdrawal  from  it  of 
the  public  deposits  is  indefensible  upon  principles  of  national  good 
faith  or  sound  policy.  I  have  already  informed  you  that  this  memor 
ial  comes  from  a  county  bearing  the  venerated  name  of  Warren. 
Having  ever  present  to  their  minds  the  glorious  associations  con 
nected  with  the  name  of  "the  first  great  martyr  to  the  cause  of  lib 
erty,"  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  they  should  speak  in  "bated 
breath  and  whispering  humbleness "  of  power  usurped  or  power 
abused.  In  a  strain  of  honest  indignation  they  declare  the  late  con 
duct  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to  be  unwarranted  by  the 
Constitution  or  laws  of  the  land.  They  appeal  to  Congress  as  the 
guardians  of  the  law  and  their  constituted  agents  for  redress.  They 
ask  you  to  vindicate  their  violated  Constitution  and  broken  laws,  by 
an  immediate  restoration  of  the  public  moneys  to  their  former  place 
of  deposit.  They  pray  you  to  recharter  the  United  States  Bank. 
These  measures  are  respectfully  demanded  of  us  as  the  only  means 
by  which  lost  confidence  and  quietude  can  be  restored,  and  their 
prosperity,  now  rapidly  declining,  arrested  in  its  downward  career. 

The  above  remarks  were  made  April  7th,  1834.  On  the  28th  MR.  CORWIN  pre 
sented  the  Memorial  from  the  citizens  of  Clinton  county,  and  spoke  as  follows : 

I  am  charged,  Mr.  Speaker,  with  the  duty  of  presenting  a 
memorial  to  this  House  from  one  of  the  three  counties  composing 
the  district  I  have  the  honor  to  represent.  This  memorial  comes 
from  Clinton  county,  in  the  State  of  Ohio.  It  is  signed,  as  two 
most  respectable  gentlemen  of  the  county  inform  me,  by  thirteen 
hundred  and  one  citizens  and  qualified  voters  of  that  county.  These 
are  composed  of  all  the  trades  and  professions  common  to  the  coun 
try,  but  chiefly  farmers — men  who  plow  and  sow  and  reap  their  own 
fields.  The  facts  they  set  forth  and  the  opinions  they  hold  are  not 
the  offspring  of  a  sudden  excitement,  produced  by  the  agitations  that 


192  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

often  prevail  without  cause  in  large  and  populous  cities,  but  the 
deliberate,  well-considered  judgment  of  each  man's  own  unbiased 
understanding. 

Gentlemen  who  have  not  looked  closely  into  the  habits  and  pur 
suits  of  the  people  who  inhabit  the  interior  agricultural  regions  of 
the  West,  can  have  but  a  faint  idea  of  their  true  character.  On  a 
footing  of  the  most  perfect  equality  in  all  their  civil  and  political 
rights ;  independent  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word ;  their  own  labor 
crowned  with  the  common  blessing  of  Providence,  places  them 
beyond  all  dependence  upon  mortal  man.  Such,  emphatically,  are 
those  whose  prayer  I  now  present  to  this  House.  Their  minds, 
invigorated  and  purified  by  healthful,  innocent  labor,  are  not  subject 
to  artificial  and  unnatural  excitements ;  nor  can  such  a  people  be  sub 
ject  to  that  most  vulgar  intemperance  of  a  deranged  heart — a  dis 
eased  craving  after  notoriety,  and  the  miserable  indulgences  of  mere 
worldly  distinction.  These  memorialists  assert  that  within  the  last 
few  months  they  have  experienced  great  scarcity  of  money  and 
depression  of  prices  of  all  the  productions  of  their  country.  The 
existence  of  those  evils  has  been  often  denied  here.  I  now  offer  to 
prove  them  by  thirteen  hundred  witnesses,  as  respectable  as  any 
equal  number  to  be  found  in  America.  These,  sir,  are  not  the  asser 
tions  of  a  party.  At  a  late  election  in  that  county  for  representa 
tives  to  the  State  Legislature  there  were  polled  1,410  votes — 1,301 
voters  of  the  same  county  sign  this  memorial.  This  exhibits  a  una 
nimity  not  to  be  found  where  political  party  machinery  is  at  work. 
They  pray  you  to  restore  the  public  moneys  to  the  custody  of  the 
United  States  Bank,  and,  believing  a  national  bank  to  be  a  national 
benefit,  they  ask  a  recharter  of  the  old,  or  the  establishment  by  law 
of  a  similar  institution.  I  need  not  add  that,  next  to  the  approba 
tion  of  my  own  conscience,  it  gives  me  pleasure  to  find  that  I  am 
sustained  in  the  course  I  have  pursued  here  on  these  great  and  excit 
ing  subjects,  by  so  large  and  respectable  a  portion  of  my  constitu 
ents. 


ON  THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  MICHIGAN. 


THE  consideration  of  the  President's  Message  transmitting  to  Congress  the  Con 
stitution  and  other  documents  originating  with  a  convention  in  the  Territory  of  Michi 
gan,  with  a  view  to  the  formation  of  a  State  Government,  was  resumed  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  December  the  a8th,  1835.  The  question  of  boundary  between  that 
Territory  and  the  adjoining  States  (which,  at  one  time,  threatened  a  collision  between 
Michigan  and  Ohio),  incidentally  came  up  during  the  debate  ;  and  in  reply  to  MESSRS. 
WILLIAMS,  of  North  Carolina,  and  MASON,  of  Virginia,  MR.  CORWIN  rose  and  said  : 

It  was  not  his  intention,  at  the  opening  of  this  discussion,  to 
protract  the  debate  a  moment ;  but  he  was  compelled,  by  a  sense  of 
imperative  duty,  to  ask  the  attention  of  the  House,  for  a  few 
moments,  to  a  view  of  this  subject,  presented  by  the  gentleman  from 
Virginia  [MR.  MASON],  who  had  just  taken  his  seat.  He  had  also  a 
word  to  say  (if  he  had  rightly  understood  him)  to  the  gentleman 
from  North  Carolina  [MR.  WILLIAMS]. 

The  gentlemen,  said  Mr.  C,  seemed  both  to  consider  the  ques 
tion  of  boundary  between  Ohio  and  the  proposed  State  of  Michigan 
as  a  judicial  question.  It  is  very  clear  that,  if  this  be  a  judicial 
question  purely,  it  will  be  difficult  to  establish  the  right  of  this 
House  to  adjudge  and  determine  it.  It  is  of  great  importance,  Mr. 
Speaker,  that  we  should  understand  well  before  we  act,  whether  we 
are  acting  within  the  scope  of  our  acknowledged  constitutional 
powers.  If  there  be  a  doubt,  therefore,  whether  this  question  of 
boundary,  or  any  other  which  may  belong  to  the  main  proposition, 
(the  admissiom  of  the  new  State),  be  a  question  proper  to  be 
decided  here,  or  referred  to  the  judicial  department,  that  doubt 
should  be  sufficient  to  send  the  whole  to  the  Judiciary  Committee — 
that  committee  being,  both  by  the  law  of  this  House  and  its  prac 
tice,  our  legal  and  Constitutional  advisers. 

Gentlemen  will  see  the  propriety  of  bringing  this  subject,  with 

all  its  attendant  topics,  to  the  notice  of  that  committee,  when  it  is 

once  perceived  that  the  question  of  boundary  cannot  be  separated 

from  the  question  of  admission  of  the  new  State  into  the  Union.      It 

14  (193) 


194  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

is  incontrovertible  that  we  have  no  power  to  alter,  modify  or  amend 
the  Constitution  of  Michigan.  This  can  only  be  done  by  a  conven 
tion  of  the  people  of  that  territory.  They  have  sent  us  an  entire 
instrument,  under  which  they  proposed  to  become  one  ef  the  Amer 
ican  confederacy.  We  must  therefore  admit  them  with  the  constitu 
tion  of  their  choice  as  it  is  here  presented,  or  we  must  reject  them, 
if  there  be  anything  in  that  constitution  which  compels  us  to  that 
course.  If  gentlemen  will  turn  to  the  Constitution  of  Michigan  it 
will  be  seen  that  it  ordains  as  well  the  boundaries  of  the  proposed 
State  as  the  rights,  civil  and  political,  of  its  inhabitants.  They  pro 
pose  to  become  a  portion  of  the  Union,  in  the  new  character  of  a 
sovereign  State,  with  territorial  limits  which  comprehend  a  large  and 
most  interesting  portion  of  two  other  sovereign  States,  to-wit: 
Indiana  and  Ohio.  This  is  determined  by  a  glance  at  the  maps  of 
the  country.  The  committee,  then,  which  shall  be  charged  with  the 
investigation  of  this  subject,  must  either  leave  that  part  of  the  Con 
stitution  of  Michigan,  which  ordains  the  boundaries  of  the  State, 
out  of  view  altogether  and  admit  them  to  come  into  the  Union, 
claiming,  if  you  please,  to  impose  her  form  of  government  on  all  the 
people  and  over  all  the  territory  of  Ohio  and  Indiana,  or  they  must 
decide  whether  that  portion  of  disputed  territory,  comprehended 
within  the  limits  of  the  new  State,  belongs  in  truth  and  by  law  to 
Michigan,  or  to  Ohio  and  Indiana,  according  to  their  known  claims, 
respectively. 

Will  any  committee,  or  will  this  House,  admit  a  State  into  this 
Union  without  ascertaining  its  territorial  jurisdiction  ?  Or  will  they, 
if  it  can  be  avoided,  admit  a  State  into  this  family  of  republics,  with 
a  license  to  sue  one  or  two  of  her  sisters?  When  she  comes  and 
knocks  at  your  door  asking  permission  to  come  into  your  house, 
that  she  may  thereby  more  easily  fight  for  and  dispossess  two  of  its 
old  inmates  of  a  portion  of  their  property,  will  you  take  her  by  the 
hand  and  spirit  her  on  to  litigation,  or  more  probably  to  a  contest  of 
force  ?  Sir,  I  am  very  sure  no  such  fatuity  will  ever  possess  this 
House ;  it  is  certain  that  no  such  necessity  is  imposed  on  us.  What, 
then,  will  your  committee  do?  They  will  examine  and  determine 
whether  the  Constitution  of  Michigan  is  consistent  with  the  rights  of 
Indiana  and  Ohio. 

I  ask  the  gentlemen,  not  merely  of  the  legal  profession,  but 
those  of  every  class  in  this  House,  to  whom  they  would  apply  for 
an  opinion  on  such  a  subject,  were  they  personally  interested  ?  Mich- 


ON    THE    CONSTITUTION    OP    MICHIGAN.  195 

igan  claims  to  extend  her  constitution  over  the  citizens  of  other 
States  as  now  constituted,  by  virtue  of  a  supposed  compact  to  that 
effect,  in  the  ordinance  of  1787.  How  is  the  force  of  that  claim  to 
be  ascertained  ?  Who  shall  say  whether  a  particular  clause  in  that 
ordinance  rises  above  the  changeable  and  repealable  character  of 
ordinary  legislation,  and  assumes  the  more  sacred  and  inviolable 
nature  of  a  contract?  No  man,  however  elevated  his  general  attain 
ments,  can  be  found  vain  enough  to  imagine  himself  competent  to 
'give  an  intelligent  and  safe  answer  to  the  question  here  involved, 
unless  he  be  to  some  extent  conversant  with  law  as  a  science. 
Again,  sir:  The  ordinance  under  which  Michigan  claims  is  but  a 
law  of  Congress.  Ohio  and  Indiana  both  claim  under  acts  of  Con 
gress  and  compacts  made  with  them  as  States.  If  these  conflict, 
who  is  competent  to  determine  which  is  paramount  to  the  other? 
To  what  committee,  in  short,  does  this  House  refer  questions  of 
law?  The  answer  given  in  every  other  case  to  this  question  has 
been  uniform — "the  standing  committee  on  the  Judiciary."  Gentle 
men  who  look  only  to  the  isolated  fact  of  admission  into  the  Union, 
will  find  that  they  can  no  more  arrive  at  that  point  without  first 
meeting  and  deciding  all  the  grave  questions  of  law  I  have  sug 
gested  than  they  could  transfer  themselves  from  this  hall  to  the  north 
ern  lakes  without  passing  over  the  intermediate  space. 

I  hope  gentlemen  will  not  deem  it  beneath  the  dignity  of  this 
House  to  consult  in  this  matter  a  little  the  feelings  and  views  of  both 
parties  to  this  question  of  boundary.  With  them  it  has  always  been 
viewed  as  mainly  a  question  to  be  resolved  by  a  right  construction  of 
the  acts  and  laws  of  Congress.  It  has  thus  been  contested  on  both 
sides.  You  are  appealed  to  as  a  final  arbiter.  They  will  expect 
you  to  call  to  your  aid  that  committee  to  whom  the  nation  looks  for 
•correct  opinions  when  construction  of  law  is  the  question.  Who 
has  ever  heard,  till  now,  of  submitting  a  legal  proposition  to  the 
Committee  on  the  Territories?  Sir,  I  disclaim  all  idea  of  drawing 
comparisons  between  the  individuals  composing  either  of  these  com 
mittees.  I  only  insist  that  the  laws  of  the  House  have  assigned  to 
each  their  appropriate  function,  and  the  Speaker  is  presumed  to  have 
arranged  the  talent  of  the  House  in  reference  to  those  laws.  For 
the  people  of  my  own  State  I  only  ask  a  fair  trial,  and  in  the  usual 
way.  Give  them  these,  and  those  fearful  excitements,  of  which  the 
gentleman  from  Virginia  has  spoken,  will  be  at  once  subdued  into 
acquiescence  in  the  decision,  whether  friendly  or  adverse  to  their 


196  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

claims.  But  should  this  House,  to  whom  the  appeal,  in  a  generous 
confidence,  has  been  made,  blunder  in  the  dark  upon  a  wrong  and 
unusual  course  and  ultimately  decide  against  them,  we  may  then 
look  for  agitations,  accompanied  with  more  frightful  violence  than 
the  gentleman  has  imagined. 

I  flatter  myself  that  it  is  apparent  to  all  that  now  is  the  most 
propitious  time  to  settle  this  unhappy  controversy.  I  imagine  all 
will  agree  that  it  is  competent  for  this  House  to  settle  it.  I  entreat 
gentlemen  not  to  think  of  leaving  the  question  open.  I  appeal  to 
the  gentleman  from  Virginia,  whether  he  could  take  pleasure  in  see 
ing  three  sovereign  States  prostrate  before  the  judicial  tribunals,  ask 
ing  of  your  courts  to  determine  whether  they  were  States!  or,  if 
States,  whether  they  had  any  territory,  and  how  much!  Sir, 
unbounded  as  my  confidence  has  been,  and  is,  in  the  federal  courts, 
for  their  sakes,  as  well  as  the  country,  I  do  not  wish  to  see  questions 
which  agitate  great  political  communities  brought  frequently  before 
them  for  decision.  To  avoid  this,  and  to  put  forever  beyond  the 
power  of  contest  this  cause  of  discord  and  disunion,  I  entreat  the 
House  to  send  this  subject  to  the  only  committee  competent  to  ana 
lyze  and  present  in  a  connected  view  all  the  questions  that  cluster 
round  it ;  and,  with  such  a  report,  I  do  not  permit  myself  to  doubt 
but  the  House  will  come  to  a  conclusion  as  satisfactory  to,  as  it  will 
be  obligatory  upon,  all  concerned. 


ON  THE  SURPLUS  REVENUE. 


THE  business  first  in  order  in  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States 
Thursday,  January  I2th,  1837,  was  the  bill  reported  by  MR.  CAMBRELING,  from  the 
Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  to  reduce  the  revenue  of  the  United  States  to  the 
wants  of  the  Government.  There  being  two  motions  pending — first,  for  commitment, 
and  secondly,  for  indefinite  postponement — MR.  CORWIN  arose  and  addressed  the 
House  as  follows : 

MR.  SPEAKER: 

I  feel  deeply  sensible  that  I  am  about  to  occupy  the  time  of  the 
House  upon  a  subject  which  cannot  possibly  be  matured  into  legisla 
tion  during  the  brief  period  that  remains  to  us  of  the  present  session. 
It  is  the  conviction  that  the  bill  before  you,  ushered  into  this  House 
with  a  haste  bordering  upon  rashness,  contains  within  its  provisions 
principles  too  momentous  and  vitally  affecting  a  large  portion  of  the 
country  to  be  acted  upon  this  session,  that  impels  me  to  solicit  the 
attention  of  the  House  to  my  reasons  for  sustaining  the  motion  of 
the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  [MR.  LAWRENCE]  for  the  indefinite 
postponement  of  the  bill.  Sir,  I  am  not  sure  that  my  thorough  con 
viction  of  the  necessity  of  tranquilizing  the  public  agitation,  which 
the  presence  of  this  bill  here  will  excite,  by  an  immediate  rejection 
or  postponement  of  it,  would  have  overcome  my  habitual  aversion 
to  addressing  the  House,  had  I  not,  in  common  with  my  friends  from 
Massachusetts  and  Pennsylvania,  felt  that  such  a  course  could  alone 
insure  the  minority  of  the  committee,  with  whom  the  bill  originated, 
against  misunderstanding,  as  well  here  as  among  those  whom  we  rep 
resent.  Had  the  motion  to  lay  the  bill  and  report  on  the  table  and 
print  them  prevailed,  a  paper  most  elaborate  in  its  structure  and 
voluminous  in  its  dimensions,  would  have  gone  forth  to  the  country, 
bearing  upon  its  face  no  intimation  that  the  whole  committee  did  not 
concur  in  it.  To  prevent  the  possibility  of  such  misconstruction,  I 
feel  it  a  duty  to  those  who  have  honored  me  with  a  seat  here  to  pre 
sent  my  protest,  against  both  the  bill  and  the  report  which  accom- 

(197) 


198  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

panics  it,  at  the  earliest  moment  possible.  This  poor  privilege,  sir, 
we  had  been  denied  yesterday,  by  the  House,  but  for  the  timely  sub 
stitution  by  my  friend  from  Massachusetts  [  MR.  LAWRENCE  ]  of  the 
motion  for  "indefinite  postponement"  for  that  which  was  made  by 
the  gentleman  from  New  York  [MR.  CAMBRELING].  The  latter  mo 
tion,  by  the  strict  law  of  parliament,  did  not  permit  the  minority  of 
the  committee  to  utter  even  a  syllable  by  way  of  dissent  to  the  prin 
ciples  of  the  bill  or  the  report.  Courtesy,  however,  it  seems,  had 
uniformly  conceded  to  a  minority  thus  situated  what  the  rigid  rule 
denied ;  but,  in  our  case,  the  gentleman  from  New  York  [MR.  MANN] 
pertinaciously  insisted  on  the  letter  of  the  law.  Courtesy  became 
inconvenient,  and  the  "iron  rule"  of  proscription  was  enforced. 
Permit  me  here,  Mr.  Speaker,  to  offer  my  thanks  to  the  gentleman 
from  Maryland  [MR.  THOMAS]  for  his  manly  appeal  to  the  House  in 
our  behalf.  Such  exhibitions  of  magnanimity  are  rare  in  these 
times,  and  ought  not  to  pass  unnoticed.  I  did  desire,  sir,  to  see  the 
bill  disposed  of  without  entering  into  a  debate  on  its  merits ;  but  as 
no  explanation  could  be  even  hinted  at  without  it,  I  am  rejoiced  that 
the  present  motion  was  made,  which  opens  the  entire  measure  pro 
posed  to  free  and  full  discussion. 

I  shall  have  occasion  to  refer  to  the  report,  as  that  is  the  expo 
sition  presented  of  the  principles  and  policy  on  which  the  bill  is 
based.  In  doing  this,  as  I  have  only  heard  it  read,  and  have  not  had 
the  advantage  of  a  perusal  of  its  contents,  I  cannot  pretend  to  quote 
its  language,  nor  can  I  hope  to  be  exact  in  giving  even  its  substance. 
I  am  happy  to  see  the  honorable  Chairman  of  the  Ways  and  Means 
[MR.  CAMBRELING]  in  his  seat,  who  will  set  me  right  should  I  at  any 
time  unwittingly  mistake  or  misrepresent  the  true  import  of  his  pro 
duction.  I  am  very  sure  the  gentleman  will  discharge  such  a  duty 
to  himself  and  to  me  with  the  utmost  alacrity.  As  he,  I  doubt  not, 
regards  this,  the  youngest  of  his  financial  progeny,  as  possessing 
every  combination  of  symmetry  and  grace,  he  will  not  sit  by  and  see 
its  beauty  marred  without  instant  interposition  in  its  behalf. 

The  most  obvious  objection  to  the  introduction  of  this  bill 
arises  from  a  view  of  its  intrinsic  importance,  and  the  difficult  and 
delicate  questions  which  are  inseparable  from  any  proposition  which 
proposes  a  radical  change  in  the  existing  tariff.  The  whole  of  the 
argument  in  the  very  voluminous  report,  which  is  nothing  but  the 
bill  on  your  table,  with  a  few  facts  and  inferences  to  prop  and  sus 
tain  it,  may  be  condensed  into  one  or  two  sentences  of  plain 


ON    THE    SURPLUS    REVENUE.  199 

English.  It  is  stated  ( and  I  shall  not  now  attempt  to  controvert  any 
fact  to  which  I  shall  have  occasion  to  refer)  that  the  existing  tariff 
extends  protection  to  labor  employed  in  manufacturing,  in  this  coun 
try,  the  annual  product  of  which  is  $300,000,000.  It  is  assumed 
(and,  for  the  sake  of  the  argument,  I  shall  admit  it)  that  the  protec 
tion  afforded  by  our  existing  tariff  laws  is  necessary,  and  no  more 
than  is  necessary,  to  enable  our  own  manufacturing  establishments  to 
exist  in  competition  with  foreign  establishments  employed  in  the 
same  business.  To  sustain  this  proposition,  the  high  price  of  labor 
and  capital  with  us,  and  the  comparative  cheapness  of  both  abroad, 
are  asserted. 

The  report  further  asserts  that  the  duties  collected  on  imports 
by  the  rates  established  by  the  law  of  March,  1833,  commonly  called 
the  Compromise  Act,  will,  with  the  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  public 
lands,  bring  into  the  Treasury,  within  the  next  eighteen  months, 
more  revenue,  by  seven  millions  of  dollars,  than  the  wants  of  the 
Government  require.  Here  I  beg  gentlemen  to  observe  that  this 
last  proposition  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  combination  of  two 
conjectures.  The  first  of  these  is,  that  the  importations  from  abroad 
to  this  country,  during  the  next  five  years,  will  reach  a  given  amount. 
Whether  this  conjecture  shall  be  verified  must  depend  upon  the  num 
berless  contingent  events,  the  turn  of  which  no  human  sagacity  can 
foresee,  arising  out  of  the  present  unsettled  condition  of  trade,  labor 
and  currency  in  Great  Britain ;  the  change  that  may  be  brought 
about  in  the  markets  of  England  by  the  termination  of  the  intestine 
wars  now  raging  in  Spain  and  Portugal,  and  lastly,  the  very  capa 
bility  of  this  country  to  consume  and  pay  for  foreign  importations 
must  depend  upon  reducing  to  order  and  stability  the  currency  of 
this  country,  which,  under  the  improving  and  sagacious  guidance  of 
this  administration,  has  been  conducted  to  a  state  of  wild  and  unman 
ageable  confusion.  The  next  conjecture  embodied  in  the  proposi 
tion  I  have  last  stated  from  the  report  is,  that  the  public  lands  are  to 
be  sold  without  any  legislative  or  executive  restraints  as  to  pur 
chasers  or  quantities.  In  other  words,  it  supposes  the  famous 
Treasury  circular  to  be  repealed.  I  beg  the  gentlemen  of  the  far 
West  particularly  to  notice  one  feature  of  this  report.  It  is  based 
upon  the  supposition  that  the  bill  now  on  your  table,  reported  by 
one  of  your  standing  committees,  with  that  title  so  captivating  to 
patriot  ears,  "A  bill  to  arrest  monopolies  of  public  lands,  and  to 
prohibit  the  sales  thereof,  except  to  actual  settlers,  in  limited  quanti- 


200  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

ties,"  is  to  be  scouted,  thrown  out  of  doors,  and  its  place  to  be  sup 
plied  by  this  more  recent  and  happy  assault  upon  the  popular  ear, 
bearing  on  its  front  the  charmed  phrase,  "A  bill  to  reduce  the  reve 
nue  of  the  United  States  to  the  wants  of  the  Government." 

The  House  will  bear  in  mind  that  this  bill  proposes  to  remedy 
an  apprehended  evil.  It  looks  into  the  future,  and  imagines  that,  in 
the  next  year  and  a  half,  the  existing  duties  on  imports  will  bring 
into  the  Treasury  more  money  than  is  required  for  the  uses  of  the 
Government  by  seven  millions  of  dollars.  I  have  already  intimated 
that  I  object  to  the  time  selected  for  bringing  into  the  House  a 
measure  fraught  with  so  many  difficulties  as  belong  to  every  subject 
which  proposes  a  radical  change  in  our  system  of  revenue. 

Without  adverting,  therefore,  for  the  present,  to  the  merits  of 
the  bill,  I  feel  confident  I  do  not  appeal  in  vain  to  the  House  to  say 
that  we  cannot  act  upon  it  between  this  day  and  the  4th  of  March. 
Let  gentlemen  look  at  the  necessary  business  now  before  us,  and 
then  calculate  the  number  of  days  remaining  for  its  final  disposition. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  Monday  in  every  week  is  devoted  to  the 
reception  of  petitions ;  Friday  and  Saturday  of  each  week,  by 
another  standing  rule,  are  set  apart  for  private  claims.  From  what 
we  have  already  seen  during  half  the  allotted  term  of  the  session,  it 
is  not  to  be  expected  that  a  moment  of  time  can  be  withdrawn  from 
that  allotted  to  petitions,  for  the  consideration  of  other  business. 
No  gentleman,  I  am  equally  sure,  dreams  that  we  should  deny  jus 
tice  any  longer  than  is  unavoidable  to  the  many  hundreds  of  private 
claims  which  have  been  favorably  reported  on  by  that  committee 
whose  awards,  with  rare  exceptions,  are  considered  laws  to  the 
House.  There  is  a  large  body  of  claimants  of  a  miscellaneous  char 
acter  in  one  class,  and  the  crippled  soldiers  and  widows  and  orphans, 
the  representatives  of  those  who  have  fallen  in  your  late  wars  with 
both  civilized  and  savage  foes,  in  another,  and  a  not  less  meritorious 
few  of  the  surviving  veterans  of  your  revolutionary  struggle  in 
another  class,  all  pointing  to  the  reports  of  your  own  committee 
and  showing  claims  upon  your  justice,  some  of  them  delayed  for  half 
a  century.  I  cannot  entertain  so  poor  an  opinion  of  the  moral  sense 
of  an  American  Congress  as  to  suppose  it  will  turn  aside  from  this 
work  of  justice  and  benevolence,  to  enter  into  dreamy  and  heartless 
disquisitions  upon  the  balance  of  trade ;  to  ponder  over  tabular  state 
ments  as  incomprehensible  as  the  Sybilline  books ;  to  adjust  with  con 
temptible  accuracy,  the  ad  valorem  duty  on  a  foreign  penknife,  and 


ON    THE    SURPLUS    REVENUE.  201 

this,  too,  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  a  few  millions  more  or  less 
from  coming  into  that  very  Treasury,  whose  doors,  in  the  meantime, 
you  close  against  those  who  demand  of  you  the  payment  of  your 
honest  debts,  for  the  non-payment  of  which  many  of  your  creditors 
are  languishing  in  poverty  and  want. 

You  have  then  remaining  for  the  dispatch  of  general  legislation 
three  days  in  each  week,  giving  about  twenty-two  days  for  the  con 
sideration  of  bills  of  a  general  nature,  and  all  the  appropriations  for 
the  current  year.  I  ask  the  majority  of  the  Ways  and  Means,  who 
have  pushed  this  new  and  perplexing  subject  on  the  House  at  this 
time,  if  it  is  modest,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  to  suppose  that  the 
House  is  to  vote  away  twenty-four  millions  of  dollars  in  appropria 
tions,  without  inquiry,  examination  or  debate,  further  than  to  ask 
whether  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  desire  it  should  be 
done?  I  ask  this  House,  whose  constitutional  and  most  important 
function  is  to  know  and  to  approve  the  object  to  which  every  dollar 
is  to  be  applied,  before  it  sanctions  its  appropriation,  whether  it  is 
willing,  at  the  mere  request  of  a  committee,  to  give  a  draft  on  the 
Treasury  for  nearly  thirty  millions  of  dollars,  and  thus  become  the 
mere  ministerial  agent  of  the  Treasury  department?  This  base 
abandonment  of  duty  you  must  submit  to,  to  this  humiliation  you 
must  come,  if  you  turn  aside  from  the  necessary  duties  of  the  ses 
sion  to  consider  the  bill  now  before  you ;  unless,  indeed,  you  choose 
to  rush  madly  upon  an  untried  scheme,  full  of  danger,  and  sur 
rounded  with  doubt,  upon  the  very  reasonable  presumption  of  the 
infallible  wisdom  of  its  authors. 

But,  Mr.  Speaker,  if  we  had  all  the  time  we  could  desire  for  the 
adjustment  of  a  new  system  of  legislation  to  any  real  or  supposed 
change  in  our  condition  at  home,  or  with  other  nations,  is  this  an 
auspicious  period  for  the  experiment?  Turn  for  a  moment  to  your 
latest  advices  from  England.  Every  painful  pulsation  in  that  great 
heart  of  capital  and  trade  is  followed  by  a  sympathetic  throb  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic.  What  is  the  state  of  currency  throughout 
Great  Britain  now?  The  price  of  money  rising,  the  banks  stopping 
payment,  and  her  financiers  unable  to  foretell  the  time  or  the  man 
ner  when  or  how  this  agitation  shall  end.  Nor  is  our  situation  free 
from  symptoms  of  coming  misfortune.  I  shall  not  stop  to  inquire 
into  the  causes  of  the  present  anomalous  situation  of  our  own  cur 
rency.  My  friend  from  Massachusetts  [MR.  LAWRENCE],  who  ad 
dressed  you  with  so  much  force  and  clearness  yesterday,  has  left 


202  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

nothing  to  be  said  by  any  one  on  these  topics.  Sir,  the  results  of 
that  gentleman's  actual  experience,  the  reflections  of  his  sound  un 
derstanding,  always  aided  by  the  promptings  of  a  good  heart,  are 
with  me  better  authority,  on  such  subjects,  than  a  thousand  quartos 
rilled  with  speculations  of  closeted  economists.  We  all  know  that, 
from  some  cause,  trade  and  currency  seem  to  be  divorced  from  each 
other;  domestic  exchanges  are  no  longer  regulated  by  the  course  of 
trade,  and  the  very  report  on  your  table  complains  of  a  redundant 
paper  circulation.  Who  can  tell  when  the  causes  which  have  pro 
duced  these  affects  shall  cease  to  operate?  Who  can  say  in  what 
they  will  finally  issue  ?  In  this  distracted  state  of  things,  what  are 
we  asked  to  do  ?  We  are  required  to  enact  a  law  that  shall  tear  from 
its  very  foundations,  where  they  have  rested  for  twenty  years  on  the 
faith  of  your  laws,  a  capital  and  labor  which  produce  property  equal 
to  three  hundred  millions  of  dollars  a  year.  Is  this  a  time  to  force 
such  an  amount  of  capital  into  new  employment?  Is  this  that 
period  of  calm  when  so  much  labor  can  safely  be  driven,  with  sudden 
violence,  to  abandon  its  safe  and  tried  pursuits,  and  seek  at  once 
other  and  unaccustomed  channels?  No,  surely  this  is  not  that  time. 
On  the  contrary,  it  would  add  another  to  many  elements  of  confusion 
already  but  too  extensively  and  actively  at  work.  Sir,  it  does  seem 
to  me  that  the  unsettled  state  of  the  internal  commerce  and  currency 
of  this  country  is  of  itself  an  unanswerable  objection  to  the  present 
enactment  of  a  law  that  all  must  see  will  powerfully  increase  the 
evils  that  already  deeply  afflict  us.  The  natural  instinct  of  brute 
animals,  in  such  a  crisis,  would  suggest  caution  and  prudence  as  the 
course  of  wisdom,  not  rash  adventure  and  wild  experiment.  If  it 
were  bad  policy  to  protect  by  imposts  the  industry  of  your  own  peo 
ple,  if  it  could  be  shown  to  be  unpatriotic  and  un-American  to  cher 
ish  by  duties  manufacturing  skill,  so  that  in  time  of  war  you  might 
be  able  to  furnish  the  commonest  necessaries  of  life  to  your  own 
people,  still,  having  done  so,  however  unwisely  at  first,  since  by 
doing  it  you  have  created  an  immense  amount  of  property,  it  would 
be  madness,  moon-struck  madness,  to  crush  that  property  at  a  blow. 
Sir,  by  the  laws  now  in  force,  if  you  but  let  them  alone,  in  five 
years,  by  your  own  showing,  the  evil  of  which  you  now  complain 
will  cease  to  exist.  Instead  of  this,  we  are  now  asked,  in  order  to 
get  rid  of  seven  millions  of  surplus  revenue,  to  destroy  an  annual 
production  of  three  hundred  millions ;  and  are  gravely  told  that  this 
will  be  a  most  salutary  financial  operation.  Let  gentlemen  keep 


ON    THE    SURPLUS    REVENUE.  203 

constantly  in  mind  that  the  bill  and  report  go  upon  the  admission, 
(at  least  it  is  not  otherwise  asserted)  that  the  duties  now  imposed 
are  barely  sufficient  to  enable  our  own  manufacturers  to  continue 
their  business.  With  the  single  exception  of  iron,  the  report  on 
your  table  will,  I  think,  be  found  to  be  in  substance  as  I  have  quoted 
it.  If,  then,  you  diminish  that  protection  by  curtailing  it  in  the 
short  space  of  eighteen  months  by  seven  millions,  which  by  the  law 
now  in  force  would  not  be  done  till  the  end  of  five  years,  it  follows, 
as  a  necessary  conclusion,  that  you  do  abandon  capital  and  labor, 
to  the  amount  I  have  stated,  to  instant  and  total  destruction. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  have  only  suggested  so  much  of  the  merits  of 
the  subject  as  I  deem  necessary  to  direct  the  attention  of  the  House 
to  the  importance  and  number  of  the  questions  which  we  are  called 
upon  to  decide,  before  we  can  safely  vote  for  or  against  the  bill.  If, 
then,  reflection  requires  time ;  if  the  exercise  of  reason  is  an  agent 
in  our  researches  after  truth ;  if  knowledge  is  not  intuitive,  we  poor 
mortals,  who  are  not  gifted  with  those  inspirations  which  seem  to  be 
the  peculiar  attributes  of  the  authors  of  this  bill  and  report,  must 
beg  a  moment's  pause  before  we  decide.  We  must  plod  on  in  the 
old  beaten  way ;  we  must  proceed  by  painful  and  slow  research ;  we 
must  stop,  look  around  us,  and  reflect  much ;  and  after  great  toil  and 
a  long  journey,  we  may  possibly  reach  those  lofty  heights  of  trans 
cendental  political  wisdom  which  the  authors  of  this  bill  have  scaled 
with  the  speed  of  lightning  at  a  single  bound.  Is  it  to  be  expected, 
I  again  ask,  that,  in  the  twenty-two  days  that  remain  for  general  bus 
iness,  we  can  canvass,  item  by  item,  appropriation  bills  to  the 
amount  of  near  twenty-seven  millions,  and  have  time  left  us  to  labor 
through  the  difficulties  that  attend  the  bill  under  consideration  ? 

Mr.  Speaker,  in  connection  with  the  objections  to  a  considera 
tion  of  this  bill,  arising  from  a  want  of  time,  I  must  remind  its 
authors,  and  the  political  majority  of  this  House,  of  another  subject, 
which,  in  justice  to  themselves  and  to  the  nation,  they  are  bound  to 
bring  forward  at  the  present  session.  I  allude  to  an  amendment  of 
the  Constitution,  so  that  the  election  of  President  and  Vice-President 
of  the  United  States  may,  in  no  event,  ever  devolve  on  Congress. 
We  are  now  approaching  the  termination  of  those  eight  years  during 
which  General  Jackson  has  occupied  the  presidential  chair.  I  believe 
each  annual  message  to  Congress,  during  all  that  time,  has  adverted 
in  strong  and  sometimes  imploring  appeals  to  the  National  Legisla 
ture  on  this  subject.  I  know  that  gentlemen  have  heretofore 


204  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

excused  their  neglect  of  these  suggestions  of  the  President  by  say 
ing  that  there  was  in  the  Senate  a  political  majority  opposed  to  them; 
and,  therefore,  the  great  reform,  so  much  desired  by  the  President 
and  his  friends,  must  wait  till  that  opposition  was  subdued.  Sir, 
whether  fortunately  or  otherwise  for  the  republic  I  will  not  say,  but 
the  fact  is,  that  favored  time,  so  long  prayed  for,  has  at  length 
arrived.  There  is  a  now  a  clear  majority,  in  both  branches  of  Con 
gress,  friendly  to  the  existing  administration.  Now,  a  time  has  at 
length  come  when  we  may  with  confidence  call  upon  the  friends  of 
General  Jackson  to  redeem  his  and  their  pledges,  so  often  given,  on 
this  vital  subject.  I  call  especially  at  this  time  for  action,  and  not 
promises  and  postponement.  General  Jackson,  after  this  session, 
will  be  no  more  here  to  admonish  or  advise  us  touching  this  interest 
ing  subject.  It  has  made  an  imposing  figure  in  that  revolution 
which  has  subverted  all  the  maxims  of  polity  and  law,  whensoever 
and  howsoever  they  were  opposed  to  his  suggestions.  It  has  been  a 
theme  on  which  honest  patriots  and  designing  demagogues  have 
-dwelt  with  equal  skill  and  power.  The  President,  for  the  last  time 
that  his  voice  can  ever  be  heard  in  public  council,  in  language  which 
bespeaks  deep  and  abiding  solicitude,  again  beseeches  you  to  act. 
Hear  what  he  says  in  his  last  message  to  Congress.  Nearly  at  the 
close,  and  when  he  is  about  to  bid  a  final  adieu  to  you  and  the  cares 
of  public  life,  he  gives  this  subject  to  your  especial  charge,  with  all 
the  solemnity  of  a  dying  declaration.  He  says:  "All  my  experi 
ence  and  reflection  confirm  the  conviction  I  have  so  often  expressed 
to  Congress  in  favor  of  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution,  which 
will  prevent,  in  any  event,  the  election  of  President  and  Vice-Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States  devolving  on  the  House  of  Representa 
tives  and  the  Senate ;  and  I,  therefore,  beg  leave  again  to  solicit  your 
attention  to  the  subject." 

Is  there,  then,  any  reason  now  for  not  carrying  this  recommen 
dation  into  effect,  by  the  party  having  the  power,  in  both  House  and 
Senate,  to  do  so?  None.  I  call,  then,  upon  the  "Democratic 
party,"  as  you  of  the  majority  sometimes  (as  if  in  derision  of  the 
name)  call  yourselves,  to  postpone  this  new  experiment  on  finance; 
dispose  of  it  at  once  for  this  year,  because  it  stands  in  the  way  of  a 
constitutional  reform,  on  which,  by  your  own  admission,  depends  all 
your  hope  of  liberty.  Do  this,  or  take  the  consequences.  If  you 
now  refuse  to  act,  when  you  have  the  undoubted  power  to  redeem 
your  pledges,  so  often  and  solemnly  given,  the  people  of  this  coun- 


ON    THE    SURPLUS    REVENUE.  205 

try  will  believe  that  all  your  promises  and  professions  were  not  the 
promptings  of  patriotism,  but  rather  the  hollow  and  selfish  artifices 
of  a  shallow  hypocrisy.  However  uncharitable  some  gentlemen 
might  deem  such  a  conclusion  to  be,  in  my  judgment  it  would  be 
most  reasonable  and  just.  Our  conduct  admits  of  no  other  explana 
tion,  if  we  consume  the  time  allowed  us  in  discussing  the  difference 
between  two  systems  of  revenue,  and  pass  by  unnoticed  another 
subject,  which,  by  our  own  declarations,  repeated  in  every  form, 
touches  our  existence  as  a  free  people. 

Sir,  I  might  here  content  myself  with  thus  expressing  my 
objections  to  the  introduction  of  this  bill,  at  this  time,  by  the  com 
mittee  of  which  I  am  a  member.  I  have  endeavored  to  satisfy  the 
House  that  the  necessary  bills,  without  the  passage  of  which  the 
Government  cannot  execute  its  ordinary  duties  during  the  year,  must 
occupy  us  the  entire  remainder  of  the  session,  and  if  we  should  pos 
sibly  have  any  time  not  thus  necessarily  employed,  that  there  are 
other  matters  of  high  and  paramount  national  importance,  which 
should  take  precedence  of  this.  But  there  is  another  objection  rest 
ing  with  great  weight  on  my  mind,  which  I  cannot  forbear  to  press 
upon  the  attention  of  gentlemen  before  I  take  my  seat.  I  allude  to 
the  Compromise  Act,  as  it  is  familiarly  called,  of  March,  1833.  If 
I  am  right  in  my  conceptions  of  the  true  character  of  that  law,  we 
are  not  only  forbidden  to  legislate  in  the  way  now  proposed  at  this 
time,  but  that  we  cannot  so  legislate  until  after  the  30th  of  June, 
1842,  without  such  sacrifice  of  honor  and  implied  faith  as  would 
make  a  bandit  blush. 

I  shall  not  pretend  that  Congress  has  not  the  power  to  alter 
essentially,  or,  if  it  will,  abolish  the  law  fixing  the  rates  of  duties  on 
a  scale  of  gradual  reduction  from  1833  up  to  1842;  but  I  deny  the 
right  of  Congress  to  do  so,  unless  impelled  by  some  dire  necessity, 
over  which  it  can  exert  no  control.  War,  that  greatest  of  all  the  ills 
that  can  befall  a  well-governed  people,  might  present  a  case  of  such 
necessity.  No  such  necessity  is  pretended.  No  gentleman  here  will 
risk  his  character  for  sanity,  by  rising  in  his  place  and  declaring  that, 
without  a  law  like  that  on  your  table,  the  liberties  or  happiness  of 
the  people  are  in  danger.  No  man,  here  or  elsewhere,  can  pretend 
that  the  Compromise  Act  of  the  2nd  of  March,  1833,  contains  any 
principle  which  menaces  the  general  welfare  of  the  country,  or  that 
its  operation  and  effects  threaten  our  national  prosperity  with  immi 
nent  danger.  On  the  contrary,  sir,  the  echoes  of  that  general  note 


206  ,      SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

of  acclaim,  which  reverberated  from  one  extremity  of  the  Union  to 
the  other,  at  the  passage  of  that  law,  are  at  this  moment  scarcely 
silenced.  Our  circumstances  are  not  changed  since  the  passage  of 
that  law,  in  any  way  connected  with  its  provisions  or  policy.  Hence 
I  infer  that,  as  that  law,  in  its  terms,  fixes  the  measure  of  protection 
which  shall  be  extended  to  domestic  manufactures  up  to  the  year 
1842,  and  as  it  was  considered  in  the  light  of  an  arrangement,  per 
manent  up  to  that  time,  by  the  Congress  who  enacted  it;  and,  fur 
ther,  as  it  was  so  regarded  by  both  the  friends  and  foes  of  the  pro 
tective  system  all  over  the  country,  and  as  those  engaged  in  manu 
facturing  shaped  their  business,  and  disposed  their  capital,  in  con 
formity  to  this  general  opinion,  although  you  have  the  power,  you 
have  no  right  now  to  annul  your  understood  engagement,  when  by 
so  doing,  a  capital  and  labor  so  great  as  to  produce  three  hundred 
millions  a  year,  which  have  been  invested  under  the  faith  thus 
pledged,  must  be  at  once  destroyed.  By  altering  essentially,  as  you 
propose  to  do,  the  act  of  1833,  you  bring  upon  this  labor  and  capi 
tal  what  is  equal  to  destruction;  you  sever  them  by  violence  from 
their  present  business  connections,  and  leave  them  to  the  mercy  of 
accident  for  future  occupation.  I  beg  gentlemen  to  turn  to  the  law 
of  1833,  and  see  how  all  the  features  of  a  compact  and  permanent 
engagement  are  carefully  impressed  upon  it. 

The  first  section,  taking  up  the  protected  articles,  or  such  as 
paid  a  duty  above  twenty  per  centum  ad  valorem,  subjects  them  to  a 
scale  of  gradual  reduction  from  1833,  until  all  are  brought  down  to  a 
duty  of  twenty  per  centum  ad  valorem  in  1842.  Why  were  the  sev 
eral  periodical  reductions  adjusted  so  carefully  through  a  period  of 
nine  years,  if  the  law  was  not  expected  to  continue  in  force  for  that 
length  of  time?  Let  any  gentleman  reflect  on  the  history  of  that 
law  for  a  moment,  and  he  can  have  no  further  difficulty  in  finding 
the  principles  of  a  permanent  compromise  in  it.  Two  great  parties, 
as  we  all  know,  existed  in  the  country.  These  were  known  by  the 
designations  of  tariff  and  anti-tariff.  The  anti-tariff  party,  chiefly 
comprised  in  the  Southern  and  Southwestern  sections  of  the  Union, 
demanded  an  abandonment  of  the  protective  principle,  and  a  reduc 
tion  of  duties  to  a  revenue  standard  alone.  They  alleged,  that  as 
they  were  consumers,  and  not  producers  of  those  articles  which  were 
protected  by  law,  they  paid  to  the  producer  (in  the  protective  duty) 
a  bounty  upon  his  labor,  and  insisted  on  the  injustice  of  thus  taxing 
the  planting  States  for  the  benefit  of  the  Northern  manufacturing 


ON    THE    SURPLUS    REVENUE.  207 

States.  Such  was  the  argument  on  one  side,  whether  correct  or  not 
I  shall  not  here  pause  to  consider.  On  the  other  side,  those  friendly 
to  the  protective  system  alleged  that  the  policy  of  protection  was 
begun  early  in  the  history  of  the  Government ;  that  especially  since 
1816  it  had  been  pursued  with  such  vigor  and  constancy  as  not  only 
to  invite  capital  but  actually  to  impel  it  into  the  business  of  domes 
tic  manufacture.  They  insisted,  and  with  the  most  obvious  reason, 
that  to  withdraw  suddenly  that  protection  would  result  in  ruin  to  the 
capitalists,  and  wide-spread  misery  to  the  laboring  classes.  They 
proposed  a  system  of  gradual  reduction  of  duties,  which  would  give 
time  for  the  acquisition  of  skill,  so  as  to  enable  them  to  operate  with 
little  or  no  protection,  or,  at  the  worst,  (if  time  were  given)  a 
gradual  and  comparatively  harmless  withdrawal  of  their  capital  and 
labor  from  manufacturing  pursuits  could  be  effected.  To  this  propo 
sition  the  South  acceded,  and  its  substance  will  be  found  embodied 
in  the  law  of  1833.  Thus  gradual  reduction,  extending  through  a 
series  of  years  to  1842,  saved  the  manufacturer,  while  the  prospect 
ive  reduction  of  duties  on  all  protected  articles  to  one  standard  satis- 
fled  the  principles  contended  for  by  the  South.  When  this  was  set 
tled,  to  make  it  binding  and  irrevocable  till  1842,  the  parties  inserted 
in  the  third  section  of  the  bill  their  solemn  declaration  to  that  effect. 
The  section  referred  to  reads  as  follows:  "  And  be  it  further  enacted, 
That  until  the  30th  day  of  June,  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and 
forty-two,  the  duties  imposed  by  existing  laws,  as  modified  by 
this  act,  shall  remain  and  continue  to  be  collected."  Could 
your  language  furnish  words  more  emphatically  expressive  of  a 
declaration  by  Congress  that  no  change  was  to  be  made  in  this 
branch  of  your  revenue  system  till  June,  1842?  Did  you  then 
expect  your  people  to  place  no  reliance  on  what  you  thus  sol 
emnly  proclaimed  as  your  determination?  No;  you  did  not  ex 
pect  the  American  people  to  treat  you  as  hollow-hearted  knaves, 
attempting  to  impose  on  their  credulity.  The  sole  object  of  pro 
claiming  to  them  the  unalterable  character  of  the  law  of  1833  was 
to  quiet  the  fearful  agitation  that  then  everywhere  prevailed,  and 
give  stability  to  that  interest — the  manufacturing  interest — which 
was  most  to  be  affected  by  your  acts.  What,  sir,  were  the  happy, 
the  glorious  effects  of  that  compromise?  The  day  before  that 
law  received  the  President's  approval  was  overcast  with  the  gath 
ering  cloud  of  civil  war,  deepening,  spreading  and  blackening  every 
hour.  The  ground  on  which  we  stood  seemed  to  heave  and  quake 


208  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

with  the  first  throes  of  a  convulsion,  that  was  to  rend  in  fragments 
the  last  republic  on  earth ;  at  this  fearful  moment  an  overruling  Prov 
idence  revealed  the  instrument  of  its  will  in  the  person  of  one  man, 
whose  virtues  would  have  illustrated  the  brightest  annals  of  recorded 
time.  He  produced  this  great  measure  of  concord,  and  the  succeed 
ing  morning  dawned  upon  the  American  horizon  without  a  spot;  the 
sun  of  that  day  looked  down  and  beheld  us  a  tranquil  and  united 
people. 

Are  we  prepared  now  to  break  the  bonds  of  peace  and  renew 
the  war?     I  have  said  you  have  the  power  to  do  so,  but  I  deny  your 
right.      I  do  not  measure  that  right  by  the  standard  of  law  in  a 
municipal  court.      I  cannot  conceive  any  idea  more  ridiculous  or  con 
temptible  than  that  which  finds  no  standard  of  moral  or  political 
duties  and  rights,   for  a  Christian,   a  private  gentleman,    or  a  states 
man,   except  that  which  is  applicable  to  a  contest  before  a  justice's 
court  or  a  nisi prius  jury.     No,  sir,  I  appeal  to  a  law  in  the  bosom  of 
man,   prior  and  paramount  to  this.      I  appeal  to  the  South,   where  I 
know  that  law  will  be  obeyed,  and  where  I  know  I  do  not  appeal  in 
vain.      I  invoke  its  characteristic  chivalry.      I  call  for  that  sentiment 
of  manly  pride  which  is  its  offspring.      I  summon  to  my  aid  that 
sensitive  honor  which  feels  "a  stain  like  a  wound,"  which  abhors 
deception  and  shudders  at  violated  faith.      Will  that  South,  which  I 
am  sure  I  have  truly  described,  join  in  this  odious  infraction  of  its 
own  treaty,  and  unite  in  this  miserable  war  upon  the  laboring  thous 
ands  who  have  confided   in    its   securities — a   war   not  waged  with 
open    force  and  strong  hand — a  war  not  waged  to  avenge  insulted 
honor,  but  to  recover  the  difference  between  five  and  ten  cents  duty 
upon  a  yard  of  cotton  goods?     Your  approach  to  this  battle  is  not 
heralded  by  the  trumpet's  voice ;  no,  you  are  to  take  the  proposed 
bill  and  go  on  a  marauding  expedition  by  way  of  reprisal.     You  are 
to  steal  into  the  dwelling  of  the  poor  and  boldly  capture  a  mechan 
ic's  dinner !     You  are  to  march  into  the  cottage  of  the  widow,  and 
fearlessly  confiscate  the  breakfast  of  a  factory  girl,  for  the  benefit  of 
the    planting   and    grain-growing   States    of   this    mighty    republic ! 
Such  are  the  motives  for  this  war,  and  such  are  to  be  the  trophies  of 
its  victories.      How  little  do  they  who  have  presented   such  argu 
ments  as  these,  in  this  report,  know  of  the  character  of  the  people 
of  the  South  and  West !     They  vainly  imagine  that  the  high-minded 
sons  of  the  South  have  drank  of  the  fatal  cup  of  the  sorceress,  and, 
like  the  companions  of  Ulysses, 


ON    THE    SURPLUS    REVENUE.  209 

"Lost  their  upright  shape, 
And  downward  fell  into  the  groveling  swine." 

The  great  grain-growing  States  of  the  West  are  informed,  in 
this  report,  that  they  may  reclaim  a  part  of  the  tribute  which,  it  is 
told  them,  they  have  been  paying  without  equivalent,  if  they  will 
agree  to  this  bill.  Let  me  tell  the  gentlemen  that  the  West  must 
first  be  satisfied  they  are  free  in  honor  to  obey  this  call.  The  hardy 
race  that  has  subdued  the  forests  of  the  West,  and  in  their  green 
youth  have  constructed  monuments  of  their  enterprise  that  shall  sur 
vive  the  pyramids,  is  not  likely,  from  merely  sordid  motive,  to  join 
in  inflicting  a  great  evil  on  any  portion  of  our  common  country. 
The  fearless  pioneers  of  the  West,  whose  ears  are  as  familiar  with 
the  sharp  crack  of  the  Indian's  rifle  and  his  wild  war-whoop  at  mid 
night  as  are  those  of  your  city  dandies  with  the  dulcet  notes  of  the 
harp  and  piano,  they,  sir,  are  not  the  men  to  act  upon  selfish  calcu 
lations  and  sinister  inducements.  They  hold  their  rights  by  law,  and 
they  believe  that  compacts,  expressed  or  implied,  arising  from  indi 
vidual  engagements  or  public  law,  are  to  be  kept  and  defended  with 
their  lives,  if  need  be — not  to  be  broken  at  will,  or  regarded  as  the 
proper  sport  of  legislative  or  individual  caprice. 

Mr.  Speaker,  we  have  heard  much  of  late  that  is  new  to  us,  if 
not  alarming,  on  this  subject  of  legislative  compact.  From  authori 
ties  of  no  mean  consideration  we  have  heard  it  boldly  preached  that 
the  validity  of  a  compact  arising  out  ot  law  is  an  exploded  paradox. 
It  is  represented  as  a  relic  of  "old  times,"  and  we  are  told  that  it  is 
inconsistent  with  the  liberties  of  the  people.  The  liberties  of 
the  people!  It  was  to  establish  "the  liberties  of  the  people" 
that  Robespierre  and  his  infamous  associates  preach  the  same  doc 
trine  to  the  deluded  and  frantic  populace  of  France.  Is  the 
American  government  now  to  adopt  this  creed  of  political  faith  ? 
How  long  is  it  since  we  were  about  to  wage  war  with  France 
for  refusing  to  fulfill  a  treaty  which,  in  the  language  of  our  Con 
stitution,  was  nothing  more  than  "the  supreme  law  of  the  land?" 
For  this  we  were  ready  to  launch  our  thunders  upon  the  seas,  and 
arm  our  whole  population  for  the  contest  on  the  land.  We  required 
the  proud  monarch  of  the  most  warlike  nation  of  modern  times  to 
humble  himself  before  the  offended  majesty  of  "public  law."  It 
is  for  a  supposed  violation  of  "public  law"  that  your  armies  have 
been  alternately  hunting  after,  and  flying  before,  the  fierce  Oceola, 
for  a  whole  year,  through  the  lagoons  and  hommocks  of  Florida. 
15 


210  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  a  people,  thus  acting,  can  be  brought 
to  disregard  like  obligations,  whether  contracted  by  express  or  im 
plied  compact,  with  its  own  citizens. 

I  hope,  sir,  I  shall  be  pardoned  for  dwelling,  it  may  be,  some 
what  too  long  upon  this  topic.  I  must  now  call  the  attention  of  the 
House  for  a  few  moments  to  what  I  deem  a  singular  phenomenon  in 
our  history,  as  set  forth  in  the  report  on  your  table.  It  is  said  that 
the  planting  and  grain-growing  States  have,  since  1789,  paid  to  the 
manufacturers  of  this  country  about  three  hundred  and  fifty  millions 
of  dollars,  for  which  they  have  received  no  equivalent.  Sir,  if  this 
be  true,  since  the  Israelites  were  required  by  the  Egyptian  tyrant  to 
make  bricks  without  straw,  there  is  no  parallel  to  such  monstrous 
oppression. 

I  have  already  stated  that  I  will  not  pretend  to  quote  the  pre 
cise  language  of  the  report.  I  am  sure  it  is  stated  that  duties  on 
imported  articles  to  the  amount  of  six  hundred  and  eighty-two  mill 
ions  of  dollars,  beside  thirty  millions  for  its  collection,  have  been 
paid  since  the  year  1789.  It  is  also  stated  in  the  report  that  more 
than  one-half  of  this  aggregate  had  been  levied  on  protected  articles. 
The  whole  scope  of  the  report  labors  to  prove  that  this  duty  on  pro 
tected  articles  is  a  grevious  and  oppressive  tax  on  consumption,  for 
which  no  equivalent  is  received  in  return.  Connected  with  these 
positions,  the  author  of  the  report  endeavors  to  show  that  the  plant 
ing  and  grain-growing  portions  of  the  Union  were,  and  are,  the  con 
sumers,  and  the  few  Northern  manufacturing  States  the  producers, 
of  the  protected  articles;  that  the  former  are  the  payers,  and  the 
latter  the  receivers  of  the  duties,  which  duties  are  represented  as  a 
mere  bounty  to  the  labor  of  the  North,  for  which  the  South  and 
West  never  have  been,  and,  in  the  nature  of  things,  never  can  be, 
reimbursed.  Sir,  I  shall  not  now  trouble  the  House,  nor  my  friends, 
who  put  forward  this  fact  as  a  truth  proved  by  figures  and  tabular 
statements,  with  any  argument  opposed  to  it,  but  I  must  be  allowed 
to  advert  to  it  as  a  Western  man  with  feelings  of  pride.  At  the 
same  time,  I  must,  in  common  with  others,  labor  under  some  doubts 
of  the  fact  asserted,  arising  out  of  the  known  history  of  the  last 
twenty  or  thirty  years. 

If  the  West  and  Southwest  have  paid  their  due  proportion  of 
this  unjust  and  unremunerated  tax  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  mill 
ions  within  the  last  forty  years,  while,  at  the  same  time,  they  have, 
as  the  world  knows,  conquered  the  savages  who  possessed  the  whole 


ON    THE    SURPLUS    REVENUE.  211 

Western  and  Southwestern  territory,  cleared  the  thick  forests  which 
overshadowed  it;  in  short,  if  that  portion  of  the  United  States  has, 
in  less  than  half  a  century,  as  all  admit,  reached  a  point  of  improve 
ment  in  wealth  and  arts  which  other  times  and  people  required  ages 
to  achieve,  then,  I  say,  I  may  with  pride  and  confidence  challenge 
the  whole  world,  within  the  period  of  authentic  history,  to  parallel 
the  wonderful  people  which  I  have  the  honor,  in  part,  to  represent. 

But,  Mr.  Speaker,  sober  reality  and  stubborn  facts  compel  me 
to  repress  this  exultation  at  our  fancied  superiority ;  modesty  com 
pels  me  to  doubt  whether  truth  places  us  so  far  above  common  mor 
ality  as  this  report  has  done.  Facts,  known  facts,  those  unaccom 
modating  things  that  ruin  so  many  beautiful  inventions  of  fertile  and 
ingenious  minds,  are  constantly  thrusting  themselves  before,  and  in 
the  way  of,  the  figures  and  philosophy  of  the  gentleman  who  has 
labored  in  this  report  to  push  by  them,  and  drive  over  them,  to 
reach  his  favorite  conclusions.  You  will  observe,  Mr.  Speaker,  that 
we  are  told  of  the  "treasuries  other  than  those  of  the  United 
States,"  into  which  this  enormous  tribute  of  three  hundred  and  fifty 
millions  has  been  poured.  In  the  same  connection  you  hear  of  the 
"princely  establishments"  that  have  been  reared  up  and  sustained 
by  it.  The  "princely  establishments"  are  in  the  Northern  manufact 
uring  States.  The  "princes"  to  whom  the  tribute  is  paid  are  the 
people  of  this  happy,  favored  region.  Where,  sir,  are  the  poor 
oppressed  tributaries,  according  to  this  report?  Why,  sir,  in  that 
sinking,  ruined,  wasted  wilderness,  the  West. 

The  author  of  this  report,  under  the  influence  of  a  too  fervid 
imagination,  has  spurned  the  shackles  and  broken  through  the  em 
barrassments  arising  from  facts  connected  with  the  scheme  of  his 
theory.  He  represents  the  Northern  manufacturing  States  as 
another  imperial  Rome,  seated  on  her  seven  hills,  rioting  in  the  lux 
uries  of  the  despoiled  and  impoverished  South,  her  treasuries  burst 
ing  with  the  enormous  wealth  poured  into  them  from  the  ravaged 
and  desolated  provinces  of  the  West.  Manufacturing  is  pictured  as 
the  finger  of  Midas,  turning  everything  it  touches  into  gold,  while  it 
would  seem  that  growing  grain  and  planting  cotton  brought  only 
taxation  without  equivalent,  poverty  and  unrequited  toil.  Sir,  if  all 
this  were  true,  what  would  follow?  The  people  of  this  country, 
however  they  may  be  excelled  by  other  nations  in  the  walks  of  let 
ters  and  the  polite  arts,  are  known  to  be  shrewd  and  well-informed, 
touching  their  own  pecuniary  interests.  Such  a  people  would  be 


212  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

found  rushing  into  the  manufacturing  districts,  to  reap  harvests  of 
wealth,  and  wallow  in  monopolies  that  drained  every  other  portion 
of  the  Union,  to  swell  their  accumulation.  Such  a  people  would 
be  found  to  shun,  as  a  land  of  pestilence  and  death,  the  agricultural 
region,  where  nothing  awaited  them  but  taxation  and  consequent 
poverty.  Sir,  I  regret  that  fact,  and  the  truths  of  history  compel 
me  to  spoil  the  beautiful  theories  and  exact  calculations  of  this  ad 
mirable  report;  but,  sir,  truth,  however  unwelcome,  will  be  found, 
at  last,  the  safest  guide  in  wandering  through  the  labyrinths  of  spec 
ulation  and  theory.  What,  sir,  is  the  fact?  Why,  for  thirty  years 
the  tide  of  emigration  has  been  from  this  very  land  of  wealth,  and 
not  to  it.  The  exodus  has  been  from  the  land  of  promise  to  the 
house  of  bondage.  The  shrewd  Yankees  have  been  flying  from 
wealth,  and  ease,  and  monoply,  in  their  own  country,  to  this  very 
oppressed  grain  and  cotton-raising  region  of  the  West,  seeking  tax 
ation,  oppression  and  want.  For  these  last  three  years,  as  every 
American  (except  the  authors  of  this  report)  well  knows,  popula 
tion  from  the  Northern  States  has  been  plowing  its  way  through  the 
ice  of  the  northern  lakes,  and  bursting  over  the  mountains,  till  the 
roads  and  rivers  are  literally  choked  with  its  masses.  Where  are 
these  colonists  going?  To  the  West  to  raise  grain  and  be  taxed! 
To  the  Southwest,  to  grow  cotton  and  become  poor !  Such  is  the 
reasoning  of  the  report.  Now,  I  beg  to  know  whether  it  is  not  tax 
ing  our  good  nature  quite  too  far  to  ask  us  to  believe,  and  act  upon, 
ingenious  theories  and  long  columns  of  figures,  standing,  as  they  do, 
opposed  to  facts,  admitted,  known  and  understood  by  every  man  in 
this  Union  over  twenty-one  years  of  age.  To  come  to  the  conclu 
sion  at  which  the  report  has  arrived,  we  are  required  to  admit  that 
man  is  blind  to,  and  careless  of,  his  own  personal  advantage.  Nay, 
more ;  the  authors  of  this  report  require  you  to  deny  to  our  Ameri 
can  race  the  common  instinct  of  all  animal  creation.  The  philoso 
phy  of  this  report  teaches  that  man  shuns  ease,  and  desires  toil ;  that 
he  hates  pleasure,  and  loves  pain;  that  he  eschews  wealth,  and 
courts  poverty ;  that  he  flies  from  power,  and  seeks  subjection.  All 
this  jumble  of  contradictions  we  are  required  to  admit  as  self-evident 
truths,  simply  to  explain  existing  facts  in  a  way  not  to  contradict 
this  erudite  treatise  on  trade  and  finance. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  know  it  is  impudent  to  obtrude  our  crude 
notions  upon  those  to  whom,  from  their  position,  we  are  taught  to 
look  for  the  lessons  of  wisdom ;  but  I  hope  I  may  be  allowed  to 


ON    THE    SURPLUS    REVENUE.  213 

inquire  of  the  majority  of  the  "Ways  and  Means,"  whether  it  had 
not  been  better  had  they  reviewed  slightly  their  philosophical  read 
ing,  before  they  sat  down  to  the  arduous  task  of  writing  the  produc 
tion  now  before  us?  Had  they  turned  to  the  pages  of  Bacon,  with 
which  I  am  sure  they  must  be  familiar,  they  would  have  found  a 
maxim  which,  since  the  days  of  the  great  author  of  the  ' '  inductive 
philosophy,"  has  never  been  disregarded.  I  think,  if  my  memory  is 
not  at  fault,  it  teaches  that  in  all  our  researches  after  truth,  we  must 
reason  "  ex  praconcessis  aut  ex  prczcognitis. "  For  the  benefit  of  my 
unlettered  Western  friends,  I  am  bound  to  render  myself  intelligible, 
by  giving  it  in  their  own  mother  tongue.  I  will  not  be  responsible 
for  accuracy,  but  I  am  sure  I  shall  not  mistake  the  substance.  The 
rule  simply  requires  us  always  to  reason  from  facts  previously 
admitted,  or  previously  known  to  exist. 

Had  this  rule  been  observed,  the  authors  of  this  report  might 
have  remembered  that  the  oppressive  tax  on  the  cotton  grower,  paid 
in  the  shape  of  duties,  was  in  some  measure  repaid  him  by  a  market 
for  350,000  bales  of  his  cotton  in  this  country  every  year,  which 
market  he  could  not  have  without  the  tax.  It  might  have  occurred 
to  them  that  the  grower  of  grain,  who  paid  his  proportion  of  the 
duty  on  protected  articles,  was  not  so  badly  off,  since  he  found,  in 
those  "princely  establishments"  spoken  of,  a  market  for  his  flour, 
pork  and  beef,  which,  without  these  establishments  furnishing  a  mar 
ket,  might  have  rotted  on  his  hands.  They  might  have  thought  the 
immense  emigration  to,  and  vast  improvements  of  the  West  were 
facts  worth  attention,  in  ascertaining  whether  that  West  was  op 
pressed  by  the  tariff,  in  a  way  too  grievous  to  be  borne.  Far  be  it 
from  me  to  assert,  sir,  that  these  facts  would  have  puzzled  the  gen 
tlemen  ;  I  only  mean  to  say,  sir,  that  vulgar  and  coarse  minds  would 
have  been  better  satisfied  with  the  report  had  some  notice  been  taken 
of  them. 

Before  I  take  leave  of  the  subject,  I  wish  to  notice  a  few  other 
difficulties  which  oppose  the  consideration  of  this  bill  at  this  time, 
and  which  spring  from  a  source  that  will  not  be  disregarded  by  the 
majority  of  this  House.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  bill  proposes  a 
reduction  of  our  income,  within  the  next  eighteen  months,  of  seven 
millions.  A  very  considerable  portion  of  this  reduction  falls  on  the 
receipts  of  the  present  year.  The  question  I  ask  here  is  this :  Can 
the  Treasury  bear  this  curtailment  of  its  resources  now  ?  To  answer 
this,  I  appeal  to  an  authority  which,  for  these  last  two  years,  has 


214  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

never  been  questioned  or  doubted  by  the  gentlemen  who  present 
this  bill  to  the  House.  I  allude  to  the  annual  report  of  the  Secre 
tary  of  the  Treasury,  made  on  the  6th  of  December  last. 

The  receipts  into  the  Treasury,  from  all  sources,  during  1837, 
are  estimated  at  $24,000,000.  I  quote  the  very  language  of  the 
report.  Gentlemen  will  find  I  am  right,  by  reference  to  Document 
No.  2  of  this  session,  page  4.  After  enumerating  the  various 
sources  (such  as  customs,  public  lands,  etc.,)  from  which  this 
amount  is  derived,  the  Secretary  proceeds  to  compute  the  amount  of 
expenditures  for  the  present  year.  I  shall  give  his  own  language, 
from  the  same  document,  page  5 : 

"The  expenditures  for  all  objects,  ordinary  and  extraordinary, 
in  1837,  including  the  contingent  of  only  $1,000,000  for  usual 
excesses  in  appropriations,  beyond  the  estimates,  are  computed  at 
$66,755,831,  provided  the  unexpended  appropriation  at  the  end  of 
this  and  the  next  year  remain  about  equal." 

Here  gentlemen  will  see  that,  instead  of  reducing  the  revenue 
down  to  the  wants  of  the  Government,  our  income,  from  all  sources, 
in  1837,  falls  short  of  our  expenditures,  as  estimated,  nearly 
$3,000,000.  If  the  Secretary  is  right,  (and  will  the  gentlemen  of 
the  majority  be  so  bold  as  to  say  he  is  wrong?)  then  the  effort 
should  be  to  increase  the  taxes,  to  raise  the  revenue  up  to  the  actual 
wants  of  the  Government  And,  sir,  if  it  were  not  for  the  five  mill 
ions,  which  are  kept  in  reserve  for  extraordinary  demands  on  the 
Treasury  by  the  deposit  bill  of  last  year,  according  to  the  calcula 
tions  of  Mr.  Woodbury,  we  should  be  compelled  now  to  increase 
the  duties  on  foreign  merchandise  during  the  present  year,  or  borrow 
money  to  meet  the  demands  on  the  Treasury.  Let  us  see  what  the 
Secretary  further  says,  on  page  5  of  the  same  report.  I  again  quote 
his  own  words: 

"From  these  calculations,  it  will  be  seen  that,  if  the  outstand 
ing  appropriations,  unexpended  at  the  close  of  1837,  be  as  large  as 
at  the  close  of  1836,  and  the  other  expenditures  should  agree  with 
the  above  estimates,  they  would  exceed  the  computed  revenue  accru 
ing  from  all  sources  nearly  $3,000,000,  or  sufficient  to  absorb  more 
than  half  of  that  part  of  the  present  surplus  which  is  not  to  be 
deposited  with  the  several  States.  But  if  these  outstanding  appro 
priations,  at  the  close  of  1837,  should  be  much  less  than  those  in 
1836,  as  is  probable,  or  should  the  accruing  receipts  be  much  less, 
or  the  appropriations  made  for  1837  be  much  larger  than  the  esti- 


ON    THE    SURPLUS    REVENUE.  215 

mates,  a  call  will  become  necessary  for  a  portion  of  the  surplus 
deposited  with  the  States,  though  it  will  not  probably  become  neces 
sary,  except  in  one  of  those  events." 

In  the  extract  I  have  read,  the  Secretary  has  quite  distinctly 
told  us  that  the  probability  is  we  shall  not  only  absord  all  the  accru 
ing  revenue,  and  the  five  millions  not  deposited  with  the  States,  by 
the  expenditures  of  1837,  but  that  the  States  will  be  called  on  to 
repay  a  portion  of  the  money  deposited  with  them,  to  meet  the 
wants  of  the  Government  during  the  present  year.  How,  sir,  does 
the  policy  of  reducing  the  revenue,  as  proposed  in  this  bill,  agree 
with  this  state  of  things?  Pass  the  bill,  sir,  and  in  eighteen  months, 
it  is  said,  you  will  save  in  the  pockets  of  the  people  seven  millions, 
which  would  otherwise  be  drawn  from  them  by  the  laws  now  in 
force.  And,  in  the  same  time,  if  you  place  any  confidence  in  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  you  will  be  compelled  to  take  from  the 
people  of  the  States  (who  are  to  have  the  use  of  'the  money  depos 
ited  with  them )  an  equal  amount,  if  not  more.  What  a  miserable 
piece  of  bungling  jugglery  would  this  be !  You  simply  take  seven 
millions  out  of  one  pocket  of  the  people  and  put  it  into  the  other, 
and  gravely  tell  them  you  have  saved  to  them  seven  millions  of 
money  by  the  process.  Sir,  the  people  of  the  States  are  not  to  be 
thus  deceived.  Let  them  look  to  this  measure  and  its  sure  results. 
It  is  designed  to  bring  about  a  state  of  things  which  will  compel  a 
call  on  them  for  the  surplus  revenue  deposited  with  them,  and  which 
I  am  happy  to  see  their  legislatures  are  using  to  the  general  advan 
tage  of  their  constituents. 

But  it  is  possible  the  friends  of  the  Secretary  will  tell  me  his 
conjectures  and  calculations  are  not  to  be  relied  on.  Shall  I  receive 
that  answer  from  the  gentlemen  composing  the  majority  here? 
Whose  authority  is  it  that  is  thus  to  be  contemned?  The  very  man 
whose  behests  have  been  laws  to  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means 
ever  since  I  have  had  the  honor  to  be  one  of  them.  Sir,  I  have 
observed  that  it  has  been  thought  by  that  committee  not  only 
unwise,  but  even  contumacious,  factious,  rebellious,  to  oppose  any 
demand  or  to  doubt  any  view  taken  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury.  Nay,  sir,  I  have  thought  sometimes  that  his  friends  on  that 
committee  considered  it  conclusive  evidence  of  essential  vulgarity; 
it  was  proof  with  them  that  a  man  had  not  seen  "good  society,"  if 
he  presumed  to  question  the  propriety  of  any  estimate  or  any  req 
uisition  coming  from  that  high  and  responsible  source.  So  preval- 


216  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

ent  were  these  opinions,  that  I  fear  I  have  sometimes  yielded  my 
assent  to  appropriations  merely  to  preserve  my  character  for  "gen 
tility"  with  the  " haut  ton"  who  compose  the  majority  here,  as  they 
do  in  the  committee  of  which  I  am  a  member.  How  is  it,  then, 
that  we  are  now  to  dismiss  all  regard  to  the  suggestions  of  this 
officer?  Has  not  the  President  certified  to  you  that  he  has  dis 
charged  his  duty  with  great  ability  and  great  fidelity  ?  Do  we  not 
hear  his  friends  everywhere  extolling  him  to  the  skies  for  a  prodigy 
of  financial  wisdom?  Did  not  the  President  select  him  for  his  great 
and  comprehensive  knowledge  of  that  most  perplexing  of  all  scien 
ces — political  economy ;  for  his  large  and  accurate  acquaintance  with 
the  channels  of  trade  and  the  sources  of  national  wealth?  Surely 
no  one  of  the  majority  will  doubt  this.  Now,  sir,  what  respect  is 
paid  to  his  opinions,  his  "official  opinions,"  by  the  bill  and  report 
on  your  table?  True,  it  cannot  be  denied,  for  the  President  has  said 
it  is  so,  that  he  has  discharged  his  duty  with  fidelity.  Is  it  not  un 
kind,  then,  in  his  friends,  his  "ministering  servants  "of  the  Ways 
and  Means,  to  treat  his  labors  with  such  cruel  indifference?  See  him 
day  and  night  watching  the  various  currents  of  trade  that  bring 
wealth  to  the  people  and  revenue  to  the  Treasury ;  sacrificing  his 
ease  and  health  to  those  "thoughts  which  waste  the  marrow  and  con 
sume  the  brain ;"  year  after  year  denying  himself,  with  stoical  forti 
tude,  the  gayeties  of  this  most  refined  and  fashionable  city,  brood 
ing  with  ceaseless  and  anxious  care  over  the  Treasury,  if  not  the 
treasure,  he  sits  like  "sad  Prometheus  fastened  to  his  rock."  And 
now,  sir,  as  if  they  were  determined  that  this  Titan  of  the  Treasury 
should  realize  the  fate  of  this  prototype  of  old,  his  ancient  friends, 
it  seems,  by  some  magical  change,  turn  tormentors,  and  are  prepared 
to  thrust  their  vulture-beaks  into  his  liver,  and,  with  remorseless 
voracity,  devour  his  flesh,  without  ever  terminating  his  pain.  Sir, 
to  drop  figure,  and  speak  in  plain  prosaic  English,  this  bill  asks  you 
to  treat  every  opinion  of  the  present  Secretary  as  stupid  nonsense, 
and  take  as  infallible  truth  the  conjectures  of  this  report  in  their 
stead.  I  ask  the  friends  of  the  Secretary  if  they  are  prepared  for 
this ;  if  not,  they  will  vote  with  me  to  postpone  the  bill. 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  whose 
views  are  diametrically  opposed  to  the  passage  of  any  law  looking  to 
a  reduction  of  the  revenue,  has  given  his  opinions  only  a  month  ago. 
Surely  he  has  not  changed  all  his  notions  respecting  our  probable 
receipts  in  1837  since  he  published  his  last  report.  I  should  be  glad 


ON    THE    SURPLUS    REVENUE.  217 

if  my  colleague  (MR.  HAMER),  who  told  us  the  other  day  "he  had 
lately  been  behind  the  curtain,"  would  inform  us  whether,  among 
other  precious  secrets,  he  had  heard  anything  of  a  total  change  of 
the  Secretary's  opinions  on  this  subject,  within  the  last  few  weeks. 

Mr.  Speaker,  if  the  gentlemen  who  have  brought  forward  this 
measure  have  emancipated  themselves  from  all  respect  for  the  opin 
ions  and  recommendations  of  your  chief  of  finance — a  respect  bor 
dering  heretofore  on  absolute  submission  to  his  will — a  little  atten 
tion  to  documents  emanating  from  a  quarter  still  more  venerated, 
will  exhibit  them  in  an  attitude  of  still  more  exalted  independence. 
They  are,  however,  (if  I  may  be  pardoned  a  conjecture  so  uncharit 
able  )  scarcely  entitled  to  a  position  so  enviable  as  that  of  self-relying 
and  self-resolved  freedom  of  action.  Something  of  the  dross  of  sel 
fishness,  unhappily  for  poor  humanity,  mingles  in  the  composition 
of  the  purest  motives,  and  stains  the  glory  of  the  most  sublime 
achievements.  The  committee  have,  I  fear,  betrayed  something  too 
much  of  a  quality,  or  to  speak  phrenologically,  an  organ,  of  com- 
bativeness.  They  have  not  only  spurned  all  the  trammels  of  prece 
dent,  and  despised  all  the  opinions  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
but  determined  that  paradox  should,  in  themselves  at  least,  have  the 
merit  of  originality.  They  have  set  at  naught,  nay,  scorned,  the 
solemn  injunctions  of  the  President  himself.  Thus,  they  may  be 
said  to  stand  "alone  in  their  glory."  Sir,  we  have  heard  much  of 
General  Jackson's  system  of  administration.  If  any  meaning  is  to 
be  attached  to  this  word  "system,"  which  can  stand  against  the  arbi 
trary  dictation  of  party,  it  will  be  admitted  that  it  implies  a  plan 
which  comprehends  an  order  of  proceeding  by  principles  extending 
over  the  time,  at  least,  of  a  presidential  term.  In  this  view,  we  can 
at  once  see  how  great  principles  are  as  true  and  applicable  in  practice 
in  1837  as  they  were  in  1836.  This  being  admitted,  let  us  see  how 
the  bill  and  report  now  before  us  harmonize  with  the  doctrines  on 
the  same  subject,  expressed  in  strong  and  earnest  advice  to  Congress, 
in  the  President's  message  a  year  ago.  I  quote  the  entire  passage 
from  the  message  of  1836: 

"Should  Congress  make  new  appropriations,  in  conformity  with 
the  estimates  which  will  be  submitted  from  the  proper  departments, 
amounting  to  about  twenty-four  millions,  still  the  available  surplus, 
at  the  close  of  the  next  year,  after  deducting  all  unexpended  appro 
priations,  will  probably  not  be  less  than  six  millions.  This  sum  can, 
in  my  judgment,  be  now  usefully  applied  to  proposed  improvements 


218  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

in  our  navy-yards,  and  to  new  national  works,  which  are  not  enumer 
ated  in  the  present  estimates,  or  to  the  more  rapid  completion  of 
those  already  begun.  Either  would  be  constitutional  and  useful, 
and  would  render  unnecessary  any  attempt,  in  our  present  peculiar 
condition,  to  divide  the  surplus  revenue,  or  to  reduce  it  any  faster 
than  will  be  effected  by  the  existing  laws.  In  any  event,  as  the 
annual  report  from  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  will  enter  into 
details  showing  the  probability  of  some  decrease  in  the  revenue  dur 
ing  the  next  seven  years,  and  a  very  considerable  deduction  in  1842, 
it  is  not  recommended  that  Congress  should  undertake  to  modify  the 
present  tariff  so  as  to  disturb  the  principles  on  which  the  Compro 
mise  Act  was  passed.  Taxation  on  some  of  the  articles  of  general 
consumption,  which  are  not  in  competition  with  our  own  produc 
tions  may  be,  no  doubt,  so  diminished  as  to  lessen,  to  some  extent, 
the  source  of  this  revenue;  and  the  same  object  can  also  be  assisted 
by  more  liberal  provisions  for  the  subjects  of  public  defense,  which, 
in  the  present  state  of  our  prosperity  and  wealth,  may  be  expected 
to  engage  your  attention.  If,  however,  after  satisfying  all  the 
demands  which  can  arise  from  these  sources,  the  unexpended  balance 
in  the  Treasury  should  still  continue  to  increase,  it  would  be  better 
to  bear  with  the  evil  until  the  great  changes  contemplated  in  our  tar 
iff  laws  have  occurred,  and  shall  enable  us  to  revise  the  system  with 
that  care  and  circumspection  which  are  due  to  so  delicate  and  impor 
tant  a  subject." 

Here  gentlemen  will  perceive  that  the  bill  and  report  are  at  war 
with  the  President's  opinion,  solemnly  expressed,  on  the  same  sub 
ject.  Mark,  however,  the  terms  employed  to  designate  the  act  of 
1833;  he  calls  it  the  "Compromise  Act."  As  he  anticipates  a  con 
siderable  reduction  in  our  revenue  during  the  next  seven  years,  and 
especially  in  1842,  he  warns  us  "not  to  disturb  the  principles  on 
which  the  Compromise  Act  of  1833  was  passed."  Spoken  like  a 
man  sensible  of  the  obligations  of  legislative  and  public  faith !  Sen 
timents  worthy  the  chief  magistrate  of  a  nation  governed  by  law, 
whose  duty  it  is  to  see  the  obligations  of  law  faithfully  observed  I 
He  speaks  familiarly  of  the  "principles"  upon  which  the  Compro 
mise  Act  was  passed.  What  does  he  mean  by  the  "principles"  of 
that  act?  Nothing  else  than  these  mutual  stipulations  by  the  great 
contending  parties  to  that  compact,  providing  for  a  stable,  fixed  rate 
of  duties,  which  should  remain,  as  the  act  itself  expresses  it,  till 
June,  1842.  The  bill  disregards  the  principles,  or  rather  violates 


ON    THE    SURPLUS    REVENUE.  219 

and  destroys  the  principles,  on  which  the  Compromise  Act  was 
passed.  The  report,  instead  of  anticipating  a  reduction  of  revenue 
by  the  laws  now  in  force,  goes  about  facilitating  that  reduction  by 
legislating  in  a  way  contrary  to  the  whole  tenor  of  the  President's 
opinion  which  I  have  quoted.  Sir,  I  call  on  the  Chairman  of  the 
Ways  and  Means  to  say  when,  before  now,  he  has  ventured  on  a 
system  of  policy  not  approved  by  the  "speech  from  the  throne."  I 
ask  him  why  he  did  not  bring  forward  this  bill  last  year,  when  every 
possible  expedient  was  resorted  to  to  get  rid  of  a  surplus,  which  was 
about  to  go  to  the  States,  as  it  did  go,  under  a  law  so  odious  to  the 
Prince  Regent,  who  is  to  mount  the  throne  the  4th  of  the  coming 
March?  A  bill  reducing  the  revenue  then  would  have  saved  the 
troubles  and  dangers  of  a  deposit  with  the  States.  That  was  the  time, 
if  ever,  to  have  urged  its  passage.  Since  the  surplus  has  gone  to  the 
States,  no  reason  exists  for  reduction.  Do  not  gentlemen  see  that  a 
most  uncharitable  view  may  plausibly  be  taken  of  their  course?  It 
will  be  said,  that  as  the  President  had  forbidden  you  to  disturb  the 
Compromise,  and  at  that  time  had  a  year  of  his  reign  remaining,  in 
which  his  power  of  reward  and  punishment  could  be  exerted,  you 
then  dare  not  incur  his  displeasure ;  but  now,  when  only  six  weeks  of 
that  reign  are  left,  to  be  spent  in  the  languor  of  convalescence,  or  it 
may  be  in  the  agony  of  pain,  you  may  treat  the  opinions  of  your  old 
chief  with  contempt,  relying  on  the  sure  protection  of  the  Executive 
elect.  Of  the  Chairman  of  the  Ways  and  Means,  (whom,  if  I  may 
not  number  among  my  friends,  I  cannot  call  my  foe,)  I  fear  it  may 
be  said  that  his  eye  has  been  so  dazzled  by  the  glitter  of  expected 
coronets,  under  the  new  reign,  that  he  has  lost  sight  of  all  regard  for 
the  principles  and  authority  of  that  which  is  now  almost  numbered 
with  the  past.  "High-reaching  Buckingham  grows  circumspect." 
What  a  striking  exhibition  is  here  of  the  emptiness  and  vanity  of 
earthly  renown  and  mere  human  power!  But  yesterday,  and,  like 
the  mighty  first  Caesar,  "the  word  of  Andrew  Jackson  might  have 
stood  against  the  world,"  and  now,  "none  so  poor  as  to  do  him  rev 
erence."  Deserted  by  all  his  old  and  faithful  followers,  abandoned 
by  those  adoring  crowds  of  self-styled  Democrats,  I  alone,  an  obscure 
and  derided  aristocrat  from  the  far  West,  as  our  nomenclature  has  it, 
I  alone  stand  by  the  desolate  old  man,  vindicating  his  opinions,  and 
stemming,  as  I  best  can,  that  torrent  of  contempt  poured  out  by  his 
own  former  friends,  which  is  likely  to  pursue  and  overwhelm  him  in 
his  retreat  from  the  scene  of  his  glory. 


220  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

How  are  we  to  account  for  this  singular  event?  Singular  indeed 
it  is,  apparently,  but  really  what  was  to  be  looked  for.  Politicians 
who  belong  to  what  I  may  denominate,  for  the  sake  of  distinction, 
the  school  of  idolatry,  do  not  worship  the  setting,  but  always  the 
rising  sun.  No  sooner,  therefore,  do  we  see  the  level  beams  of  the 
retiring  hero's  setting  orb  begin  to  melt  into  the  twilight,  than,  as 
we  might  expect,  the  thick  crowds  turn  wistfully  to  a  dubious  and 
uncertain  dawn  in  an  opposite  quarter  of  the  heavens.  With  char 
acteristic  fitfulness  it  now  shoots  a  gleam  of  faint  light  above  the 
horizon,  and  anon  withdraws  it  from  sight.  At  last,  "half  con 
cealed,  half  disclosed,"  it  rises  on  the  world,  and  hither  the  multi 
tudes  repair  to  "worship  and  adore." 

Thus,  and  thus  only,  can  we  account,  sir,  for  those  eccentric 
movements  and  strange  contradictions  which  crowd  themselves  into 
the  annals  of  the  little  and  great  aspirants  after  the  perishable  honors 
of  this  world ;  and  this  bill  we  are  to  receive  as  the  first  offering  upon 
the  altars  erected  to  our  new  divinity.  It  is  in  this  way  our  new 
sovereign  will  signalize  the  beginning  of  his  reign.  He  will  destroy, 
in  the  first  year,  three  hundred  millions  of  property,  all  for  the  good 
of  his  loving  subjects ;  and,  with  the  blessing  of  God,  which  may  be 
most  reasonably  expected  to  attend  so  beneficent  a  work,  proceeding 
at  this  rate,  he  will  succeed,  in  his  reign  of  four  years,  in  destroying 
twelve  hundred  millions  of  the  nation's  property.  Thus  will  our 
excellent  Democratic  Government  enable  our  people  to  feel  the  force 
of  that  consoling  declaration  of  Scripture,  "blessed  are  the  poor." 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  should  be  happy  to  spare  myself  the  pain  which 
it  always  gives  me  to  recur  to  former  transactions  in  a  way  likely  to 
excite  unpleasant  feelings ;  but  I  have  the  misfortune  to  differ  with 
the  majority  of  a  committee  of  which  I  am  a  member;  I  am  there 
fore  compelled,  in  self-defense,  to  give  every  reason  in  my  power  for 
the  course  my  conscience  impels  me  to  pursue. 

The  House  are  already  apprized  that  the  bill  on  the  table  pre 
supposes  a  surplus  of  revenue  as  certain  to  accrue  within  the  next 
eighteen  months.  The  existence  of  this  surplus  is  the  evil  the  bill  is 
intended  to  prevent.  Whether  this  apprehended  surplus  will  accrue 
is  matter  of  opinion.  I  wish,  then,  to  present  another,  and  only 
one  other,  document,  to  show  the  reliance  to  be  placed  upon  the 
opinions  of  that  very  majority  of  the  Ways  and  Means,  who  now 
require  us,  on  the  faith  of  their  opinion  and  conjecture  merely,  to 
pass  this  bill.  Many  gentlemen  will  remember  that  various  projects 


ON    THE    SURPLUS    REVENUE.  221 

for  the  disposition  of  the  surplus  revenue  were  referred  to  this  same 
committee,  composed  of  the  same  persons  last  year  which  now  com 
pose  it.  On  the  1st  of  July,  1836,  just  before  the  close  of  the  last 
session,  and  only  about  six  months  ago,  a  report  was  made  from 
which  I  propose  to  read  an  extract.  It  will  be  seen  by  this  extract 
what  were  the  opinions  of  the  committee  then,  as  to  any  surplus 
which  might  possibly  come  into  the  Treasury,  and  also  their  prog 
nostics  as  to  the  probability  of  such  an  event  happening  at  all. 

After  disposing  of  a  variety  of  topics,  and  reviewing  our  past 
history,  as  usual,  complaining  with  becoming  indignation  of  bad  cur 
rency  in  England  and  America,  and  deploring  the  existence  of  an 
evil  spirit  of  speculation,  notwithstanding  the  late  death  of  the 
United  States  Bank,  the  report  concludes  as  follows: 

"Our  revenue  from  customs  and  public  lands,  after  1837,  is  not 
likely  to  exceed  the  expenditures  of  Government.  It  is,  therefore, 
important  that,  whatever  surplus  we  may  have  in  the  meantime, 
whether  deposited  with  the  local  banks  or  in  the  State  treasuries,  as 
is  proposed  after  the  1st  of  January  next,  should  be  preserved,  to  be 
applied  to  the  extraordinary  purposes  we  have  been  compelled  to 
provide  for  during  this  session,  and  for  similar  expenditures,  which, 
in  the  present  state  of  our  Indian  relations,  may  again  become  nec 
essary.  On  the  balance  in  the  Treasury  on  the  1st  of  January  next, 
and  the  revenue  which  may  be  received  in  1837,  there  will  be 
charged,  in  addition  to  the  current  expenditures  of  that  year,  and  all 
extraordinary  demands  that  may  occur,  probably  near  fifteen  millions 
for  appropriations  authorized  at  the  present  session,  making  the 
claims  upon  the  Treasury  in  the  next  year  greater  than  in  the  pres 
ent,  while  the  revenue  of  1837  will  be  considerably  less  than  that  of 
1836,  and  leaving  the  surplus  at  the  close  of  that  year  much  dimin 
ished.  As  our  income  will  not  probably  then  exceed  our  current 
expenditures,  we  must  rely  entirely  upon  what  surplus  we  may  have 
to  defray  all  expenses  which  may  become  necessary  in  extinguishing 
Indian  titles  to  lands,  removing  the  tribes  beyond  the  Mississippi, 
and  for  other  subjects  of  expenditure  of  an  extraordinary  character." 

I  beg  the  House  to  notice  with  what  oracular  gravity  the  proph 
ets  then  uttered  their  predictions:  "Our  revenue  from  customs  and 
public  lands,  after  1837,  is  not  likely  to  exceed  the  expenditures  of 
Government."  We  are  then  kindly,  but  still  peremptorily,  admon 
ished  to  husband  our  surplus,  if  any,  to  meet  those  exigencies  which 
every  wise  and  considerate  man  should  always  be  prepared  to  expect 


222  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

in  human  concerns.  Again,  at  the  close  we  are  thus  addressed: 
"As  our  income  will  not  probably  then  exceed  our  current  expendi 
tures,  we  must  rely  entirely  upon  what  surplus  we  may  have  to 
defray  all  the  expenses  which  may  become  necessary  in  extinguish 
ing  Indian  titles  to  land,"  etc.  So  spoke  the  prophets  six  months 
since;  and  now,  up  jumps  the  Chairman  of  the  Ways  and  Means, 
"modest  as  Morning  when  she  eyes  the  youthful  Phcebus,"  and  full 
of  the  same  inspiration  that  burned  in  the  bosom  of  the  seer  in  July 
last;  and,  in  the  same  solemn  prophetic  tones,  he  tells  us  our  income 
will  exceed  our  expenditures.  Now  we  are  admonished  not  to  hus 
band  any  surplus  we  may  have,  but  to  reduce  the  revenue  by  seven 
millions  in  the  next  year  and  a  half,  so  that  no  surplus  whatever  shall 
remain. 

Sir,  when  I  see  with  what  ruthless  hand  the  committee  has  torn 
to  pieces  every  shred  of  character,  for  either  ability  or  fidelity,  of 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and  how,  with  the  same  destructive 
appetency,  they  have  trampled  down  the  authority  of  the  President 
himself;  and,  lastly,  when  I  see  with  what  ridiculous  gravity  these 
two  reports  of  the  same  committee,  differing  only  six  months  in 
their  ages,  contradict  each  other,  I  hope  the  gentlemen  will  pardon 
the  degrading  analogy,  but  really  I  can  think  of  nothing  like  them 
but  the  celebrated  "cats  of  Kilkenny;"  they  have  at  last  literally 
swallowed  each  other.  Sir,  I  have  done  with  this  subject.  I  know 
I  have  detained  the  House  already  too  long ;  for  this  I  must  find  an 
apology  in  the  fact  that  I  had  not  the  most  distant  thought  of 
addressing  the  House  on  this  subject  till  the  afternoon  of  yesterday. 
Without  further  time  for  arrangement  of  topics,  I  could  not  hope  to 
preserve  that  order  which  is  so  favorable  to  brevity  as  well  as  per 
spicuity.  Let  me  again  implore  the  House  to  put  this  subject  at 
once  at  rest.  The  worst  evil  that  can  come  is  a  surplus  of  a  few 
millions ;  and  even  this  the  highest  officer  in  the  Government  con 
nected  with  your  financial  system  tells  you  is  impossible.  But  if  it 
should  occur,  send  it,  as  you  have  done  before,  to  the  States,  where 
it  can  be  used  as  well  as  kept.  If  this  surplus  is  an  evil,  in  that  way 
you  can  rid  yourselves  of  it  as  easily  as  the  shipwrecked  apostle 
shook  off  the  serpent  that  fastened  upon  his  hand.  At  all  events, 
let  your  people  rest  one  year  from  your  miserable  experiments.  Let 
your  former  blunders  teach  you  some  caution.  In  your  attempt  to 
bring  about  a  gold  currency,  you  have  flooded  the  land  with  bank 
notes.  In  destroying  the  United  State  Bank  monoply,  you  have 


ON    THE    SURPLUS    REVENUE.  223 

raised  up  a  greater  monopoly  in  public  lands.  Now  you  are  to  try 
the  experiment  of  breaking  down  what  are  called,  in  this  report,  the 
"princely  establishments  of  the  North."  Sir,  you  will  not,  cannot, 
at  least  now,  effect  this  last  and  most  cruel  experiment.  Let  us  then 
put  this  bill  quietly  to  sleep  somewhere;  let  it  rest  in  peace  till  1842; 
then,  perhaps,  it  may  re-appear  among  us  under  other  auspices,  and 
with  better  claims  to  our  regard. 


ON  THE  CUMBERLAND  ROAD. 


IN  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United  States,  Friday,  April  20,  1838, 
the  House  having  again  resumed  the  consideration  of  the  bill  making  appropriations 
for  the  continuation  of  the  Cumberland  Road  through  Ohio,  Indiana  and  Illinois, 
MR.  CORWIN  addressed  the  House  as  follows : 

MR.   SPEAKER  : 

I  perceive  the  House  is  unusually  impatient  of  this  debate.  I 
am  very  reluctant,  at  any  time,  to  lift  up  my  voice  in  this  Babel  of 
confused  voices,  but  especially  so  now ;  nor  would  I  delay  the  final 
vote  for  a  moment,  did  I  not  remember  that  this  bill  has  been 
already  once  rejected  but  a  day  or  two  since,  and  from  the  tone  of 
discussion  this  morning,  I  have  too  much  reason  to  fear  it  will  meet 
a  similar  fate  by  the  vote  now  about  to  be  taken.  I  may  add,  also, 
that  I  feel  unwilling  to  permit  the  remarks  of  the  two  gentlemen 
from  South  Carolina  (  MR.  CLOWNEY  and  MR.  PICKENS  )  to  pass  to  the 
press,  and  from  thence  into  the  public  mind,  without  an  attempt,  at 
least,  to  correct  the  erroneous  impressions  in  which,  according  to 
my  views,  they  abound. 

The  bill  now  under  discussion,  for  the  continuation  of  the  Cum 
berland  Road,  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  continuance  of  a 
system  of  regular  annual  expenditure,  begun  in  1806,  and  continued, 
with  the  exception  of  the  short  period  of  the  war  with  Great  Britain, 
every  year  up  the  present  time.  The  estimates  for  this  appropria 
tion  are  as  regularly  and  habitually  sent  in  by  the  Treasury  depart 
ment  as  are  those  for  the  salary  of  the  President  and  other  public 
servants,  or  those  for  the  support  of  the  army.  If  a  continued  per 
severance  in  the  prosecution  of  any  public  measure  for  thirty  years 
cannot  be  looked  to  as  settling  the  public  utility  of  such  measure, 
or  the  fixed  policy  and  duty  of  this  Government,  beyond  the  reach 
of  cavil  or  objection,  then,  indeed,  may  it  be  truly  said  that  we  are 
a  people  without  common  forethought,  a  Government  without  any 
established  policy,  a  confederacy  without  any  common  end  or 
aim  whatever.  (224) 


ON    THE    CUMBERLAND    ROAD.  225 

The  construction  of  the  road  provided  for  in  this  bill,  from  the 
waters  of  the  Atlantic  to  the  Mississippi  river,  was  originated  during 
the  administration  of  Mr.  Jefferson.  It  has  received  the  countenance 
of  every  shade  and  complexion  of  political  party  in  Congress,  at 
various  periods  since,  and  has  been  sanctioned  by  the  approval  of 
every  Executive  from  that  time  to  the  present.  It  has  thus  become 
incorporated  with  your  policy.  It  makes  a  part  of  the  creed  of  all 
parties,  and,  as  it  advances  in  its  progress,  is  woven  into  the  texture 
of  those  systems  of  internal  improvement  going  forward  in  each  of 
the  six  States  through  which  it  passes.  A  measure  thus  persever- 
ingly  continued  so  long,  sustaining  itself,  through  perpetual  conflicts, 
and  every  vicissitude  of  our  history  for  the  last  thirty  years,  comes 
recommended  at  once  to  the  mind  as  something  necessary — some 
thing  which  has  been  found  indispensable,  and  not  merely  convenient. 
It  stands  in  your  policy  like  one  of  those  truths  in  philosophy  which 
is  not  questioned  because  it  has  received  the  general  assent  of  all  rea 
sonable  men.  Speaking  of  such  a  measure,  this  morning,  the  gentle 
man  from  South  Carolina  (  Mr.  Pickens,  richly  imbued  as  his  mind  is 
with  philological  learning)  could  find  no  terms  whereby  to  character 
ize  this  bill  less  odious  than  swindling  and  plunder.  Then  by  a  dex 
trous  evasion  of  the  substance,  and  a  strict  observance  of  the  letter  of 
the  rules  of  courtesy  in  debate,  the  gentleman  has  been  able,  by  fair 
inference,  to  denounce  the  supporters  of  the  bill  as  the  prompters  of 
"swindling,"  the  aiders  and  abettors  of  "plunder."  [Here  Mr. 
Pickens  rose  and  observed  that  he  had  not  applied  the  terms  stated 
by  Mr.  Corwin  to  the  bill,  or  those  who  supported  it.  He  had 
stated,  in  argument,  the  case  of  a  general  system  of  taxation,  and 
an  appropriation  to  partial  and  local  purposes,  and  denominated  that 
as  swindling  and  plunder.]  I  understand  the  gentlemen  as  he  ex 
plains  himself.  He  has  made  a  speech  against  this  bill.  He 
has  endeavored  to  illustrate,  in  various  ways,  its  iniquity  and  impol 
icy.  He  denounces  this  road  as  local  in  its  character,  and  not  of 
general  utility.  He  shows  that  the  money  appropriated  is  a  part  of 
the  common  revenue  raised  from  the  whole  Union.  He  then  speaks 
of  general  taxation,  and  local  appropriations,  and  calls  this  last  a 
system  of  swindling  and  plunder.  It  is  but  the  difference  between  a 
positive  assertion  and  a  conclusion  from  premises  stated.  Sir,  I 
desire,  when  thus  arraigned,  to  submit  my  defense.  If  I  am  not 
mistaken,  the  gentleman  will  find  this  system,  and  this  road,  have 
been  cherished  and  heartily  supported  by  men,  living  and  dead,  to 
16 


226  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

whom  even  he  would  be  willing  to  defer  in  such  matters,  and  with 
whose  memories  and  character  he  would  not  associate  the  folly  and 
criminality  which,  in  his  over-wrought  zeal,  he  fancies  he  has  discov 
ered  in  this  bill. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  do  not  intend  to  elaborate  an  essay  upon  this 
road,  but  I  must  be  permitted  to  notice,  for  a  few  moments,  the  very 
summary  method  by  which  gentlemen  with  great  apparent  ease 
acquit  their  consciences  of  all  censure  for  voting  down  now  and  for 
ever  all  further  appropriations  of  the  kind.  Yesterday  the  gentle 
man  from  South  Carolina  [MR.  RHETT]  spoke  of  the  supposed  im 
portance  of  the  road  west  of  Wheeling  for  military  purposes,  as  an 
idea  too  ridiculous  to  merit  a  moment's  serious  thought.  It  seemed 
to  him  perfectly  idle  to  imagine  that  ordnance  or  military  stores 
would  ever  be  transported  by  land  westward  while  the  Ohio  river 
remained,  and  so,  with  undoubting  confidence  and  the  utmost  self- 
complacency,  he  assures  us  that  a  "fool's  cap  and  bells"  should  be 
bestowed  upon  any  one  who  entertains  a  contrary  opinion.  Sir,  I 
hope  I  may  be  allowed,  with  great  humility,  not  indeed  to  deny  to 
the  conclusions  of  the  gentleman  the  greatest  certainty  possible  in 
matters  of  this  kind,  but  merely  to  suggest  a  fact  or  two  which  it 
may  be  well  to  consider  a  moment  before  we  swear  to  the  infallibil 
ity  of  his  judgment  on  this  millitary  question.  In  the  first  place, 
the  road  and  river,  though  both  running  from  east  to  west,  from 
Wheeling  to  the  Mississippi,  are  distanced  from  each  other,  from 
north  to  south,  from  ninety  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  at  various 
points.  I  think  it  possible  in  the  chances  of  war  that  it  might  be 
come  necessery  to  march  a  military  force  directly  from  Wheeling  to 
Columbus,  in  Ohio,  or  to  the  capitals  of  Indiana  or  Illinois,  and  to 
take  along  with  such  force  a  train  of  artillery.  Would  the  Ohio 
river,  think  you,  be  so  obliging  as  to  leave  its  ancient  bed  and  bear 
your  cannon  on  its  waves  across  the  country  from  Wheeling  to 
Columbus,  in  Ohio,  and  from  thence  by  Indianapolis  to  Springfield, 
in  Illinois?  If  we  could  suspend  the  laws  of  the  physical  world,  or 
if  a  miracle  could  be  wrought  at  our  command,  then  the  confident 
opinion  of  the  gentleman,  that  this  road  is,  in  no  sense,  of  military 
importance,  would,  in  my  poor  judgment,  appear  somewhat  plausible. 
But  the  gentleman  seems  also  to  forget  that  the  waters  of  the  Ohio, 
in  spite  of  our  wishes  to  the  contrary,  will  freeze  into  hard  ice.  For 
three  months  in  the  winter  it  is  not  at  all  times  navigable.  On 
account  of  shoals  it  is  not  navigable  at  a  time  of  low  water  in  sum- 


ON   THE    CUMBERLAND    ROAD.  227 

mer.  And  hence  it  would  follow,  that  your  military  movements  in 
that  quarter,  if  ever  necessary,  would  have  to  wait  for  the  floods  of 
summer  and  the  thaws  of  winter.  But  I  will  not  venture  to  oppose 
any  speculative  notions  of  mine  to  an  opinion  so  confidently  enter 
tained  by  several  gentlemen  from  the  South  who  have  spoken  in  this 
debate.  I  will  fortify  myself  by  an  authority  which  I  am  sure  will 
command,  as  I  know  it  should,  infinitely  more  regard  than  any  opin 
ion  or  argument  of  mine. 

It  will  be  remembered,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  this  Government,  soon 
after  the  late  war  with  Great  Britain,  admonished  by  the  experience 
of  that  war,  determined  on  prosecuting  a  general  system  of  military 
defense.  To  this  end,  General  Bernard  was  brought  from  France, 
and  placed  at  the  head  of  the  engineer  corps.  In  the  year  1824  it 
became  the  duty  of  this  officer,  under  the  direction  of  Mr.  John  C. 
Calhoun,  then  Secretary  of  War,  to  survey  and  report  to  Congress 
such  rivers  to  be  improved,  and  canals  and  roads  to  be  constructed 
all  over  our  territory,  as  were  conceived  to  be  of  national  importance 
for  commercial  or  military  purposes.  On  the  3rd  of  December, 
1824,  Mr.  Calhoun  submitted  to  the  President,  and  through  him  to 
Congress,  the  result  of  the  labors  of  this  corps,  accompanied  with 
his  own  reflections  and  recommendations.  It  will  be  found,  on 
examining  that  document,  that  this  very  Cumberland  road  is  classed 
with  other  great  works  of  internal  improvement,  which,  in  the  opin 
ion  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  were  necessary  to  the  defense  of  the  country  in 
war,  and  that  the  road  now  under  the  consideration  of  the  House  is 
there  pronounced  to  be  of  "national  importance."  This  was  the 
opinion  of  Mr.  Calhoun  in  1824.  The  construction  of  the  Cumber 
land  road,  as  a  work  of  commercial  importance,  as  well  as  a  sure 
means  of  binding  in  union  the  Eastern  and  Western  portions  of  our 
country,  had  been  urged  upon  Congress  by  Mr.  Gallatin,  as  Secre 
tary  of  the  Treasury,  as  early  as  1803,  and  by  Mr.  Giles  and  Mr. 
John  Randolph,  of  Virginia,  in  reports  which  they  respectively  sub 
mitted  to  Congress  about  the  same  time.  Before  the  navigation  of 
the  rivers  of  the  West  by  steam,  no  one  could  cast  his  eye  upon  the 
map  of  the  Western  States,  and  not  perceive  at  once  the  incalculable 
value  of  this  road  to  the  commerce  of  both  East  and  West.  If  the 
application  of  steam  to  navigation  has  diminished  the  importance  of 
the  road,  this  was  known  and  considered  by  Mr.  Calhoun,  when  he 
made  the  report  to  which  I  have  referred.  In  1824  the  steamboats 
-were  flying  on  their  wings  of  fire  from  Pittsburg  to  New  Orleans,  as 


228  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

they  are  now;  yet  Mr.  Calhoun  pronounced  the  Cumberland  road 
tJien  a  work  of  "national  importance."  I  beg  the  gentleman  from 
South  Carolina,  who  spoke  this  morning  [MR.  PICKENS],  to  peruse 
that  report  of  his  friend,  Mr.  Calhoun.  I  beg  him  to  ponder  well 
the  magnificent  and  expensive  works  of  internal  improvement  there 
commended  to  the  favorable  regard  of  this  Government.  The 
waters  of  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  were  to  flow  together.  From 
the  Ohio  the  chain  was  to  be  stretched  across  that  State  to  the  north 
ern  lakes,  and  thus  the  North  and  South  are  to  be  bound  up 
together,  one  in  their  internal  interests,  as  they  are  one  and  identical 
in  their  national  and  extra  territorial  relations.  But  I  need  not  par 
ticularize;  what  I  have  specified  comprehends  not  the  twentieth 
part  of  those  works  in  magnitude  and  expense  then  recommended 
by  Mr.  Calhoun  as  proper  to  be  constructed  by  the  Federal  Govern 
ment,  at  the  expense  of  the  common  Treasury  of  the  nation. 

The  Cumberland  road,  as  I  have  said,  is  one  among  the  rest 
there  recommended  as  of  "national  importance."  Mr.  Speaker,  I 
must  beg  the  indulgence  of  the  House  to  read  a  single  paragraph 
from  the  document  referred  to.  After  speaking  of  the  great  advan 
tages  to  the  whole  Union  of  one  of  the  great  Western  works  to 
which  I  have  already  adverted,  the  Secretary  proceeds : 

"The  advantages,  in  fact,  from  the  completion  of  this  single 
work,  as  proposed,  would  be  so  extended  and  ramified  throughout 
these  great  divisions  of  our  country,  already  containing  so  large  a 
portion  of  our  population  and  destined  in  a  few  generations  to  out 
number  the  most  populous  States  of  Europe,  as  to  leave  in  that 
quarter  no  other  work  for  the  execution  of  the  General  Government, 
excepting  only  the  extension  of  the  Cumberland  road  from  Wlieeling  to  St. 
Louis,  which  is  also  conceived  to  be  of  national  importance." 

Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  if,  in  the  bill  under  discussion,  there  be  any 
feature  akin  to  "swindling  and  plunder,"  I  ask  the  gentlemen  from 
the  South  to  return  to  that  gigantic  project  of  kindred  works  pro 
jected  by  their  own  justly  favorite  son,  and  tell  me  in  what  vocabu 
lary  among  the  "tongues  of  men"  they  can  find  epithets  odious 
enough  to  shadow  forth  the  diabolical  tendencies  of  his  plan.  Sir,  if 
this  bill  be  swindling,  his  scheme  is  robbery.  If  this  bill  be  petty 
plunder,  his  plan  was  wholesale  desolation.  But,  good  or  bad, 
whichever  it  be,  we  have  his  authority  for  it.  Well  do  I  remember, 
sir,  in  what  high  esteem  the  Secretary  of  War  [MR.  CALHOUN]  was 
held  throughout  the  West  in  the  year  1824.  The  sober  affections  of 


ON    THE    CUMBERLAND    ROAD.  229 

the  aged,  and  the  ardent  hearts  of  the  young,  all,  all  were  attracted 
to  him.  His  altars  blazed  everywhere  throughout  the  broad  valleys 
of  the  West.  Right  loyally  and  prodigally  did  we  pour  out  our 
incense  upon  our  shrine;  and  lo!  what  now  do  we  see?  While  the 
smoke  of  our  sacrifice  yet  ascends  in  gathering  clouds;  while  the 
distended  nostrils  of  our  deity  inhale  its  grateful  odors  almost  to  suf 
focation;  he,  in  whom  our  affections  were  all  enshrined;  he,  the 
author  of  this  our  faith ;  he,  the  chosen  object,  it  may  be,  of  our 
very  profane  and  heathenish,  but  sincere  idolatry;  he,  with  the 
selected  high-priests  still  of  his  faith,  suddenly  rush  upon  us  from 
the  South,  overturn  their  own  altars,  and  scourge  us,  their  mis 
guided,  but  still  honest,  devotees,  from  the  temple  themselves  had 
erected.  Not  content  with  this,  but  determined,  it  seems,  to  con 
sign  both  the  authors  and  the  followers  of  the  creed  to  hopeless 
infamy,  they  have  compared  their  own  system  of  policy  to  a  system 
of  plunder,  and  themselves  and  us  to  a  combination  of  swindlers. 

Let  not  the  gentlemen  from  the  South  suppose  that  I  quote  the 
authority  of  Giles,  and  Randolph,  and  Gallatin,  in  1802  and  1803, 
and  Mr.  Calhoun  as  late  as  1824,  to  fix  upon  Southern  gentlemen 
the  sin  of  inconsistency,  or  sinister  motives,  for  change  of  principle. 
No,  this  is  not  my  motive.  I  wish  to  convince,  and  not  to  taunt  the 
gentlemen.  I  wish  them  to  pause  upon  their  own  present  opinions, 
and  to  compare  them  with  the  views  of  those,  living  and  dead,  to 
whom  I  have  referred,  in  the  hope  that  in  the  light  of  those  great 
minds — that  light  that  has  been  to  them  "a  pillar  of  fire  by  night," 
in  all  their  political  wanderings  heretofore — might,  haply,  now  serve 
to  keep  them  in  the  right  way.  I  beg  the  gentleman  from  South 
Carolina  [MR.  RHETT],  who  so  readily  voted  "cap  and  bells"  to  the 
heads  of  such  as  entertained  particular  notions,  which  he  condemned 
of  the  utility  of  this  road,  to  take  back  his  gifts  a  moment,  and  see 
whether  he  may  not  possibly  be  found  unawares  placing  these 
badges  of  imbecility  and  folly  on  the  graves  of  Randolph  and  Giles ; 
and  whether,  if  he  is  to  be  impartial  and  just  in  the  distribution  of 
such  honors,  he  may  not  be  compelled  to  pass  over  into  the  chamber 
of  the  Senate,  and  bestow  one  set  of  them  upon  the  illustrious  Sena 
tor  from  his  own  State.  Mr.  Speaker,  I  venture  to  suggest  to  the 
gentleman  from  South  Carolina  [MR.  RHETT],  in  a  spirit  of  sincere 
respect,  that  there  is  a  posterity  for  him  as  well  as  those  great  and 
good  men  whose  opinions  he  sets  at  naught.  I  hope  I  may  without 
offense,  suppose  it  possible  that  in  some  distant  day,  when  this  very 


230  SPEECHES   OF   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

road,  paved  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Mississippi,  shall  be  crowded 
with  commerce,  and  groan  beneath  its  load  of  travel;  when,  by  the 
speed  with  which  your  armies  can  pass  over  it,  from  the  center  to 
the  remote  border  of  your  country,  some  fearful  rebellion  is  happily 
quelled,  or,  for  the  same  reasons,  some  insolent  foreign  foe  is  speed 
ily  repulsed,  the  age  that  then  is  may  possibly  remove  the  "cap  and 
bells"  from  the  last  resting-place  of  Giles  and  Randolph,  where  he 
has  hung  them,  and  look  for  the  tomb  of  another,  as  better  deserv 
ing  the  honor  of  these  significant  emblems.  Sir,  when  I  glance  at 
the  history  of  this  road ;  when  I  remember  that  it  was  begun  in  the 
administration  of  Jefferson,  and  approved  by  him ;  when  I  group 
together  the  other  illustrious  names  who  have  for  thirty  years  also 
given  it  their  sanction,  I  am  prone  to  believe,  my  own  judgment 
concurring,  that  I  am  right  in  carrying  on  what  has  been  thus  begun. 
I  cannot  reverse  the  settled  and  long  unquestioned  decisions  of  the 
fathers  and  founders  of  the  Republic,  upon  the  faith  of  the  last 
night's  dream.  I  cannot  so  readily  believe  that  the  sages  of  past 
times  violated  the  Constitution  to  make  a  road.  I  cannot  see  why, 
if  that  were  so,  it  has  not  been  discovered  in  the  lapse  of  thirty 
years.  Sir,  I  know  much  is  said,  and  truly,  at  this  day,  of  that 
advance  of  the  human  mind.  I  know,  sir,  it  was  written  thus  long 
ago,  "Men  shall  go  to  and  fro,  and  knowledge  shall  increase."  All 
this  I  know,  and  yet  I  cannot  quite  believe  that  us  young  gentlemen 
here,  in  this  year  of  grace,  1838,  have  now,  this  morning,  descended 
to  the  bottom  of  the  well  where  truth  lies,  as  is  said,  and  for  the  first 
time  brought  up  and  exposed  her  precious  secrets  to  the  long-anx 
ious  eyes  of  the  inquiring  world.  Just  as  slow  am  I,  Mr.  Speaker, 
to  believe  that  the  great  men  who  gave  us  a  country  forty  years  ago, 
did  not  understand  what  its  true  interests  were.  They  who  pro 
jected  this  great  work  were  not  men  to  rush  into  hasty  and  ill-con 
sidered  measures.  They  had  been  accustomed  to  settle  the  founda 
tions  of  society,  and  they  did  their  work,  in  all  things,  under  the 
habitual  reflection  and  responsibility  which  their  immortal  labors 
inspired.  Sir,  let  us  beware,  in  the  midst  of  our  party  conflicts, 
how  we  hastily  question  their  calm  resolves.  Let  us  take  care,  in 
this  day's  work,  with  the  hoarse  clamor  of  party  resounding  ever  in 
our  ears,  that  we  are  not  deaf  to  the  voice  of  wisdom,  which  calls 
out  to  us  from  the  past. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  have  thus  far   considered    the   bill    upon  your 
table  as  providing  for  one  work,  itself  a  part  of  a  system  of  "inter- 


ON    THE    CUMBERLAND    ROAD.  231 

nal  improvement."  I  have  referred  so  far  to  the  opinions  of  men 
whom  we  are  accustomed  to  regard  as  good  authority,  to  show  that 
the  road  in  question  has  been  regarded  as  one  of  national  import 
ance,  and  as  such,  is  within  the  acknowledged  powers  of  Congress. 
But,  sir,  this  bill  rests  its  claims  to  our  support  upon  a  basis  far  less 
liable  to  those  assaults  which  consider  it  only  in  the  isolated  view  of 
expediency.  It  is,  in  truth,  a  bill  for  the  fulfillment  of  a  contract. 
It  proposes  to  carry  into  affect  a  compact,  to  the  performance  of 
which  the  faith  of  this  Government  is  pledged  to  three  sovereign 
States  of  this  Union.  I  know,  sir,  that  many  gentlemen  here  are 
familiar  with  this  view  of  the  subject,  but  I  feel  equally  certain  that 
there  are  others  who  are  not. 

The  gentleman  from  Kentucky  [MR.  POPE]  the  other  day  dis 
cussed  this  branch  of  the  subject  with  great  ability,  but  I  am  im 
pressed  with  the  necessity  of  presenting  it  more  at  length,  even  at 
the  risk  of  being  tedious.  I  shall  endeavor,  by  a  reference  to  acts 
of  Congress  and  public  documents,  to  show  that  we  are  bound  to 
construct  this  road  as  far  as  the  Mississippi  river ;  that  we  have  con 
tracted  to  do  so ;  that  we  have  received  the  consideration  for  this 
contract  from  the  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana  and  Illinois.  If  I  can  es 
tablish  these  as  facts,  it  will  follow  that  to  stop  the  road  short  of  the 
Mississippi  would  be  a  gross  neglect  of  duty,  and  a  flagrant  breach 
of  national  faith. 

In  the  year  1787,  "the  territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio,"  com 
prehended  what  are  now  the  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michi 
gan  and  Wisconsin  territory.  The  celebrated  ordinance  of  1787, 
among  other  things,  provided  that  there  should  be  three  States  at 
least  out  of  this  territory,  which  should  be  bounded  by  the  Ohio 
river  on  the  south,  the  Mississippi  on  the  west,  and  a  specified  line 
on  the  north.  This  last  line,  many  gentlemen  here  will  recollect, 
was  finally  established  as  the  northern  boundary  of  Ohio,  Indiana 
and  Illinois,  very  lately,  on  the  admission  of  Michigan  into  the 
Union. 

Early  in  the  year  1802  the  eastern  division  of  this  territory  peti 
tioned  Congress  to  provide  for  its  admission  into  the  Union,  under 
the  ordinance  of  1787,  which  provided  that  certain  portions  of  the 
territory,  having  60,000  inhabitants,  should  be  entitled  to  come  into 
the  Union  as  sovereign  States.  This  application,  with  a  census 
showing  the  number  of  inhabitants  then  within  what  are  the  present 
limits  of  Ohio,  was  referred  to  a  committee  in  the  House  of  Repre- 


232  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

sentatives,  of  which  William  B.  Giles,  of  Virginia,  was  the  chairman. 
On  the  4th  of  March,  1802,  Mr.  Giles  made  a  favorable  report 
on  this  petition,  and,  among  other  things,  referring  to  certain  mat 
ters  of  compact,  in  the  ordinance  of  1787,  the  report  concludes  in 
these  words: 

"The  committee,  taking  into  consideration  these  stipulations, 
viewing  the  lands  of  the  United  States  within  the  said  territory  as  an 
important  source  of  revenue ;  deeming  it  also  of  the  highest  import 
ance  to  the  stability  and  permanence  of  the  union  of  the  Eastern  and 
Western  parts  of  the  United  States,  that  the  intercourse  should,  as 
far  as  possible,  be  facilitated,  and  their  interests  be  libe'rally  and  mu 
tually  consulted  and  promoted — are  of  opinion  that  the  provisions  of 
the  aforesaid  articles  may  be  varied  for  the  reciprocal  advantage  of 

the  United  States  and  the  State  of ,  when  formed,  and  the 

people  thereof;  they  have  therefore  deemed  it  proper,  in  lieu  of  said 
provisions,  to  offer  the  following  propositions  to  the  convention  of 
the  Eastern  State  of  said  territory,  when  formed,  for  their  free 
acceptance  or  rejection,  without  any  condition  or  restraint  whatever, 
which  if  accepted  by  the  convention,  shall  be  obligatory  on  t/ie  United 
States." 

The  report  then  sets  forth  three  propositions  to  be  submitted  to 
the  Ohio  convention ;  the  third  proposition  being  the  one  applicable 
to  this  subject,  is  in  these  words: 

"That  one-tenth  part  of  the  net  proceeds  of  the  lands  lying 
in  the  said  States,  hereafter  sold  by  Congress,  after  deducting  all 
expenses  incident  to  the  same,  shall  be  applied  to  the  laying  out  and 
making  turnpike  or  other  roads  leading  from  the  navigable  waters 
emptying  into  the  Atlantic  to  the  Ohio,  and  continued  afterward 
through  the  State  of ,  such  roads  to  be  laid  out  under  the  author 
ity  of  Congress,  with  the  consent  of  the  several  States  through  which 
the  road  shall  pass,  provided  that  the  convention  of  said  State  shall 
on  its  part  assent  that  every  and  each  tract  of  land  sold  by  Congress 
shall  be  and  remain  exempt  from  any  tax  laid  by  order  or  under 
authority  of  the  States,  whether  for  State,  county,  or  township,  or 
any  other  purpose  whatever,  for  the  term  of  ten  years  from  and  after 
the  completion  of  the  payment  of  the  purchase  money  on  such  tract 
to  the  United  States." 

Attached  to  this  report  is  an  official  letter  addressed  by  Mr. 
Gallatin,  then  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  to  Mr.  Giles,  dated  Wash 
ington,  13th  February,  1802.  Mr.  Gallatin,  deeply  impressed  with 


ON    THE    CUMBERLAND    ROAD.  233 

the  advantage  to  the  Government  of  this  contract  with  the  new 
State,  urges  it  upon  Congress  as  a  means  of  increasing  the  value  of 
the  public  lands  owned  by  the  Government,  and  then  pledged  for 
the  payment  of  the  national  debt.  After  stating  a  variety  of  argu 
ments  to  that  effect,  he  says: 

' '  It  follows  that,  if  it  be  in  a  high  degree,  as  I  believe  it  is,  the 
interest  of  tlie  United  States  to  obtain  some  further  security  against  an 
injurious  sale,  under  the  Territorial  or  State  laws,  of  lands  sold  by 
them  to  individuals,  justice,  not  less  than  policy,  requires  that  it 
should  be  obtained  by  common  consent,  and  it  is  not  to  be  expected 
that  the  new  State  Legislatures  should  assent  to  any  alterations  in 
their  system  of  taxation  which  may  effect  the  revenues  of  the  State, 
unless  an  equivalent  is  offered." 

He  then  goes  on  to  insist  that 

"Such  conditions,  instead  of  diminishing,  would  greatly  increase  the  value  of 
the  lands,  and,  tfierefore,  of  the  pledge  to  the  public  creditors." 

The  last  paragraph  in  this  document  urges  another  argument  in 
favor  of  this  road,  which  I  hope  will  not  be  overlooked  by  gentle 
men  who  consider  it  a  boon  merely  to  the  young  States  of  the  West. 
Mr.  Gallatin  thought  this  road  would  be  highly  advantageous  to  the 
old  States,  and  he  addresses  their  cupidity  accordingly,  in  these 
words : 

"The  roads  will  be  as  beneficial  to  the  parts  of  the  Atlantic 
States  through  which  they  are  to  pass,  and  nearly  as  much  so  to  a  con 
siderable  portion  of  the  Union,  as  the  Northwestern  Territory  itself." 

On  the  30th  of  April,  1802,  an  act  was  passed  authorizing  the 
people  of  the  eastern  division  of  the  Northwestern  Territory  to  form 
a  Constitution  and  State  Government.  In  that  law  the  proposition, 
somewhat  modified,  is  inserted  and  by  Congress  proposed  to  the 
Convention  which  was  to  assemble  the  next  summer.  In  the  act  just 
quoted,  five  per  cent,  of  the  proceeds  of  the  lands  within  the  State 
are  proposed  as  a  fund  to  make  a  road  ' '  from  the  Atlantic  waters  to 
and  through  the  State,  and  the  condition  of  the  grant  is,  that  the  State 
shall  abstain  from  taxing  the  lands  sold  by  the  United  States  for  five 
years  from  and  after  the  day  of  their  sale." 

In  the  month  of  November,  1802,  the  Convention  of  Ohio 
assented  to  the  proposition  contained  in  the  act  of  April,  1802,  with 
this  modification :  That  three-fifths  of  the  five  per  cent,  fund  should 
be  appropriated  to  laying  out  and  making  roads  within  the  State,  and 
under  its  direction  and  authority,  leaving  two  per  cent,  on  all  the 


234  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

sales  of  land  within  the  State  to  be  appropriated  to  a  road  leading 
from  the  Atlantic  waters  to  and  through  tJie  Stale  of  Ohio.  To  this 
Congress  expressly  assented  at  its  next  session,  upon  the  recommen 
dation  of  a  committee,  of  which  John  Randolph,  of  Virginia,  was 
the  chairman,  and  thus  the  compact  was  closed.  Here  let  it  be 
observed  that  compacts,  of  the  same  kind  and  in  the  same  words, 
have  been  concluded  between  the  States  of  Indiana  and  Illinois,  and 
this  Government,  at  the  times  when  these  States  were  respectively 
admitted  into  the  Union.  In  this  way,  following  up  the  project 
begun  in  1802,  of  constructing  a  road  "from  the  Atlantic  waters  to 
the  Mississippi  river,"  passing  from  the  Ohio  the  whole  distance  to 
the  Mississippi,  through  your  own  public  lands,  it  was  carried  out  by 
compact  with  each  State,  as  soon  as  it  became  capable  of  entering 
into  such  engagements,  by  assuming  the  powers  and  dignity  of  a 
sovereign  State  of  the  Union. 

I  have  said,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  you  had  contracted  to  construct  a 
road  from  the  Atlantic  waters,  through  the  new  States  of  the  West, 
to  the  Mississippi  river.  I  have  shown,  by  reference  to  public  docu 
ments,  that  the  motives  to  this  contract  were,  first,  to  increase  the 
value  of  the  public  domain,  to  and  through  which  this  road  was  to 
pass,  and  thus  put  money  into  the  national  purse,  to  pay  the  national 
debt ;  secondly,  to  bind  together  in  union  of  interest  the  East  and 
West,  by  creating  a  quick  and  constant  intercourse  between  the 
Western  and  Atlantic  divisions  of  your  common  country.  Now  the 
first  main  object,  the  increase  in  value  of  the  public  lands,  never 
could  be  effected,  unless  you  carried  the  road,  not  merely  "to  and 
though"  Ohio,  where,  in  1802,  your  public  lands  for  sale  chiefly  lay, 
but  would  only  be  fairly  realized  by  carrying  the  road  "to  and 
tlirougli"  each  of  the  other  Western  States,  as  your  lands,  by  the 
extinguishment  of  the  Indian  title  in  these  States,  should  come  into 
market.  These  were  the  views  upon  which  you  set  out,  in  your 
propositions  of  compact,  at  first.  These  were  your  "inducements" 
held  out  to  Ohio,  and  repeated  in  each  of  your  engagements  to 
make  the  Cumberland  road  with  Indiana  and  Illinois.  With  these 
determinations,  asserted  through  your  public  and  authorized  agents, 
you  ask  of  the  Western  States,  in  consideration  of  inducements  thus 
held  out,  to  do  what?  To  grant  you  a  trifling  sum  of  money  to  aid 
you  in  your  effort  to  improve  the  value  of  your  own  lands?  No. 
To  allow  you  to  pass  through  their  territory  in  such  way  as  you 
choose?  No.  No  such  inconsiderable  demands  as  these  were  on 


ON    THE    CUMBERLAND    ROAD.  235 

your  lips.  You  demanded  of  them  to  surrender  up  for  your  ben 
efit  the  tax  on  nearly  all  the  property  in  these  States  for  five  years. 
In  other  words,  you  asked,  and  you  received,  too,  into  the  public 
Treasury  of  the  Union,  a  direct  tax  for  five  years  on  all,  or  nearly 
all,  the  lands  in  three  large  and  populous  States.  You  said  to  the 
purchaser  of  your  lands,  buy  of  us,  and  your  property  thus  acquired 
shall  be  free  from  taxation  for  five  years ;  and  thus  you  got  an 
increase  of  price  paid  to  you,  what  otherwise  would  have  gone,  in 
the  shape  of  taxes,  into  the  coffers  of  the  States.  This  is  true  in 
regard  to  almost  all  the  lands  in  the  three  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana 
and  Illinois.  Each  of  these  States  was  admitted  into  the  Union- 
with  barely  sixty  thousand  inhabitants.  The  quantity  of  lands  then, 
sold  was  so  inconsiderable  as  to  make  no  sort  of  change  in  the  esti 
mated  value  of  the  right  we  surrendered.  Take  Ohio,  for  example: 
She  gave  up  to  you  her  right  to  tax  all  lands  then  unsold  for  five 
years  after  they  should  be  sold.  She  had  then  sixty  thousand  inhab 
itants,  she  has  now  probably  one  million  and  a  half  of  population, 
and  there  are  yet  public  lands  unsold  in  that  State.  Thus  you  can 
see  that  we  have  released  to  you  our  right  to  tax  lands  in  the  hands 
of  nineteen-twentieths  of  our  people  for  five  successive  years.  This, 
too,  was  done  at  a  time  when  there  was  scarcely  any  other  subject  of 
taxation  but  lands,  and  when,  in  the  infancy  of  our  several  State 
governments,  the  first  movements  of  political  and  social  machinery- 
require  heavy  expense  from  those  least  able  to  bear  it.  Let  us  see 
what  it  was  in  money  that  we  gave.  It  will  be  found,  on  examina 
tion,  that  the  three  States  interested  cover  an  area,  according  to  the 
best  authorities,  of  something  over  one  hundred  and  twenty  millions 
of  acres  of  land.  Deducting  something  for  reservations  made  before 
the  compact,  we  may  safely  estimate  the  lands  then  to  be  sold  in  the 
three  Western  States  at  one  hundred  and  twenty  millions  of  acres. 
We  gave  up  the  right  to  tax  these  for  five  years  from  the  day  of  sale. 
What  has  been  the  usual  rate  of  taxation  upon  lands  in  these  States? 
I  think  I  may  fairly  affirm  that  the  rate  of  taxation  on  lands  in  the 
three  States  interested  has  been  one  dollar  on  every  hundred  acres. 
This,  levied  on  one  hundred  and  twenty  millions  of  acres,  would 
give  one  million  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  per  annum,  which,  in 
five  years,  the  time  for  which  the  tax  was  surrendered  by  the  States, 
would  give  the  sum  of  six  MILLIONS  OF  DOLLARS.  This  sum  have  we 
paid  into  your  Treasury  for  your  promise  to  complete  the  road  in 
question.  In  addition  to  this,  we  surrendered  our  sovereign  right 


236  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

of  taxation  within  our  own  limits — a  right  itself  so  dear  to  States 
that,  as  matter  of  pride,  just  pride,  its  surrender  could  only  have  been 
extorted  by  the  strongest  hope  of  advantage — the  hope  of  some 
great  and  striking  improvement  in  our  whole  country,  such  as  this 
great  work  will  be  when  you  complete  it,  as  you  have  promised. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  have  shown  that  the  three  Western  States  have 
given  into  the  National  Treasury,  in  effect  six  millions  of  dollars,  for 
the  promise  to  construct  this  road.  Let  us  now  advert  for  a  moment 
to  the  cost  of  the  work  as  estimated  at  the  time  of  the  contract,  and 
we  shall  find  that  the  Government  then  understood  that  this  sum 
would  construct  the  road  from  the  Atlantic  waters  to  the  Mississippi ; 
nay,  that  in  all  probability  there  would  be  a  surplus  remaining  in  the 
Treasury  after  the  road  was  finished.  The  kind  of  road,  its  location, 
and  the  time  of  its  completion,  were  all  left  with  this  Government  to 
be  adjusted,  under  a  fair  interpretation  of  the  compact.  After 
proper  examination,  it  was  determined  to  commence  at  Cumberland, 
and  strike  the  Ohio  line  at  Wheeling,  in  Virginia. 

On  the  3rd  of  March,  1808,  Mr.  Gallatin,  then  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  reports  to  Congress  that  the  road  had  been  located  from 
Cumberland  toward  Wheeling,  a  distance  of  seventy  miles,  and  adds 
the  expense  of  completing  that  part  of  the  road  is  estimated  at 
$400,000.  This  estimate  shows  that  the  average  estimated  cost  of 
the  road,  over  by  far  the  most  expensive  part  of  it,  was  a  trifle  less 
than  six  thousand  dollars  per  mile.  The  whole  length  of  the  road, 
from  Cumberland  to  the  Mississippi,  as  surveyed,  is  six  hundred  and 
fifty  miles ;  it  may  be  a  mile  or  two  more  or  less.  Now,  take  the 
-estimated  cost  per  mile,  as  reported  by  Mr.  Gallatin,  which  was  for 
the  mountain  region  entirely,  and  remember  that  one  half  less,  it 
was  supposed,  would  suffice  to  make  the  road  across  the  level  plains 
of  the  West,  and  we  shall  see  at  once  how  reasonable  it  is  that  the 
Congress  of  that  day,  after  receiving  what  was  equivalent  to  six 
millions  of  dollars,  should  make  an  unconditional  promise  to  con 
struct  the  road  to  the  Mississippi  river. 

The  contract,  as  then  understood  from  the  estimate,  was  simply 
as  follows: 

Value  of  the  tax  released  in  favor  of  the  Federal  Government 

by  the  three  Western  States, $  6,000,000 

Cost  of  the  road  650  miles,  at  66,000  per  mile,  according  to 

Mr.  Gallatin's  estimate  for  the  first  70  miles,  .  .  3,900,000 

$  2,100,000 


OX    THE    CUMBERLAND    ROAD.  237 

Leaving  two  millions  in  the  Treasury,  after  making  the  road  as  then 
estimated.  Upon  this  view,  founded  on  facts  and  representations  of 
public  men,  cotemporaneous  with  this  compact,  it  is  clearly  shown 
that  the  States  paid  the  Federal  Government  what  the  parties  then 
believed  a  full  consideration  for  completing  the  road  the  entire  dis 
tance  proposed.  From  this,  what  follows  ?  Why,  surely,  that  the 
Government  promised  to  do  what  in  conscience  it  ought,  that  is,  to 
do  the  act  which  they  were  paid  for  doing — to  make  the  road  com 
plete  according  to  the  contract. 

But  here,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  am  told  that  whatever  may  have  been 
the  reasonable  expectations  of  the  parties,  as  to  the  completion  of 
this  work,  when  the  contract  was  made,  the  Government  only  bound 
itself  to  appropriate  two  per  cent,  of  the  net  proceeds  of  the  public 
lands,  and  that  this  has  been  done,  and  no  moneys  remain  of  this 
fund  applicable  to  the  purposes  of  the  contract.  To  this  I  reply, 
that  such  is  not  the  contract,  and  I  think  I  have  shown  this  from  the 
proofs  already  adduced.  I  grant  you  that  two  per  cent,  of  the  net 
proceeds  of  the  public  lands  are  pledged  for  the  performance  of 
your  promise  to  make  the  road ;  but  this  pledge  does  in  no  sense 
limit  the  contract  for  which  it  is  only  a  mere  security.  Let  it  be 
remembered  that,  when  this  contract  was  made,  the  public  lands 
were  pledged  for  the  payment  of  a  large  national  debt.  To  increase 
the  value  of  these  lands  was  one  motive  to  make  the  road,  and  the 
States  aided  you  in  this,  paid  you  for  it,  by  relinquishing  the  taxes 
on  them  for  five  years  after  sale ;  it  was,  therefore,  only  fair,  as  the 
Government  was  deeply  in  debt,  that  the  States  should  have  some 
security  for  the  performance  of  your  contract.  This  security  was 
given  by  pledging  the  two  per  cent,  named  in  the  contract.  But  it 
was  not  the  contract,  it  was  only  a  security  given  to  the  States  for 
its  faithful  performance.  This  interpretation  is  fortified  by  other 
stipulations  in  the  contract.  The  time,  manner  and  location  of  the 
road  are  all  left  to  the  General  Government.  Why  was  this? 
Because  you  had  bound  yourselves,  in  general  terms,  to  make  a 
road.  And  it  was,  therefore,  only  reasonable  that  you  should  have 
control  over  a  work  which  you  bound  yourselves  to  finish.  Had  you 
bound  yourselves  only  to  pay,  for  the  purposes  of  the  work,  a  spec 
ified  sum,  such  as  the  two  per  cent,  mentioned,  is  it  possible  to  sup 
pose  the  States  would  have  left  you  to  appropriate  tlieir  money,  for 
which  they  paid  you,  in  your  own  way,  and  according  to  your  own 
discretion  ?  Such  a  contract,  on  the  part  of  the  States,  would  have 


238  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

been  absolute  insanity.  It  involves  an  absurdity  too  gross  for 
serious  consideration.  This  itself  shows  that  the  two  per  cent,  fund 
was  only  a  pledge,  a  security,  and  not,  as  some  have  supposed,  the 
contract  itself.  Thus  you  have  always  construed  the  contract. 
According  to  your  own  admission,  you  have  gone  on  to  make  the 
road  without  regard  to  the  two  per  cent.  fund.  You  say  vastly  more 
than  this  has  been  expended.  Why  did  you  do  this,  if  only  two 
per  cent,  on  the  sales  of  lands  were  to  be  given  to  the  road?  No 
rational  answer  can  be  given  to  this  question,  but  one.  The  two  per 
cent,  did  not  limit  the  contract,  it  only  secured  its  performance ;  and 
this  has  been  your  own  uniform  construction  of  it,  as  evinced  by  all 
your  conduct  up  to  this  day,  throughout  a  lapse  of  more  than  thirty 
years. 

Let  me  suppose,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  the  two  per  cent,  fund  was 
all  you  promised,  which,  however,  I  by  no  means  admit.  You  say 
it  was  to  be  expended  by  you ;  you  are  the  trustee  of  the  fund,  and 
the  agent  for  its  appropriation.  Be  it  so,  then,  for  the  sake  of  the 
argument.  What  was  this  fund  committed  to  your  charge  ?  Two 
per  cent,  upon  the  sales  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  millions  of  acres 
of  land.  This  you  were  bound  to  sell  for  $2  per  acre,  for  this  was  the 
price  fixed  by  law  at  the  time  of  the  contract.  This  would  produce 
$240,000,000.  Two  per  cent,  upon  this  would  be  $4,800,000. 
You  had  estimated  the  road  to  cost  $3,900,000.  Thus  you  see  that, 
by  every  calculation  based  upon  the  state  of  things  as  existing  at 
the  date  of  the  contract,  the  States  and  yourselves  had  a  right  to 
suppose  that,  happen  what  might,  if  you  acted  up  to  your  engage 
ments,  the  road  would  be  made.  But  $2  per  acre  was  then  the  min 
imum  price  of  the  land,  and  we,  being  interested  in  the  fund,  had, 
and  now  have,  a  right  to  demand  of  you  that  you,  as  trustee,  shall  get 
as  much  more  as  possible,  by  selling  all  the  land  at  auction  in  the 
way  fixed  by  law  as  it  then  stood.  Now  let  us  see  how  you  have  com 
plied  with  the  law  and  reason  of  this  contract  in  the  management  of 
this  fund  given  in  trust  for  its  execution.  In  the  first  place  you 
sank  the  value  of  the  fund  nearly  one-half  by  reducing  the  price  of 
the  land  from  $2  to  $1.25  per  acre.  In  the  second  place,  you  have 
given  away  immense  amounts  of  this  fund  in  bounty  lands  to  sol 
diers,  which  you  can  never  sell,  and  for  which  you  can  render  no 
account.  Thirdly,  you  have  given  to  individuals,  for  purposes 
unconnected  with  this  contract,  a  very  large  amount  which  never  has 
or  can  be  accounted  for  upon  the  principles  of  your  solemn  engage- 


ON    THE    CUMBERLAND    ROAD.  239 

ments  with  us.  Fourthly,  you  have  given  very  large  amounts  to  the 
States  to  make  canals,  exacting  from  them  as  an  equivalent  the  right 
to  carry  your  mails,  arms,  armies  and  munitions  of  war  on  them  free 
of  tolls  forever.  Fifthly,  you  have  given  away  many  millions  of 
acres  in  preemption  claims,  at  the  minimum  price,  without  any 
attempt  to  sell,  and  account  (as  you  were  bound  to  do)  for  the  pro 
ceeds.  Thus  you,  our  agent  to  manage  a  fund  destined  to  make  our 
road,  have  so  wasted  it,  and  used  it  for  your  own  purposes,  that  you 
never  can  tell  whether  it  would  have  produced  the  expected  amount 
or  not.  What  is  the  consequence  in  law,  in  reason,  in  justice? 
What  follows?  Why,  sir,  any  justice  of  the  peace  can  tell  you. 
You,  the  agent,  must  answer  for  this  by  replacing,  out  of  your  own 
funds,  what  you  have  wrongfully  taken  from  us.  But  as  you  have 
so  disposed  of  the  trust  fund  that  you  never  can  tell  what,  if  sold  at 
auction,  it  would  have  produced,  and  so  cannot,  by  any  certain  rule, 
therefore,  ascertain  the  amount  you  have  taken  wrongfully  from  us, 
you  must  suffer  the  inconvenience ;  you  must  take  from  your  own 
funds,  and  do  what,  when  you  contracted  with  us,  you  affirmed  this 
wasted  fund  would  do,  that  is,  complete  the  road  in  question  from 
Cumberland  to  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi  river. 

Is  not  this  equitable,  fair,  honorable,  just?  Why  then  stick  in 
the  bark?  as  the  lawyers  say.  Why  these  pettifogging  quibbles, 
these  dilatory  pleas?  Does  such  conduct  become  a  great  nation? 
Sir,  it  has  been  said  that  honor  is  the  vital  principle  of  monarchy. 
You  say  you  represent  sovereigns — the  sovereign  people.  Act  then 
as  becomes  the  dignity  of  your  royal  constituents.  Leave  no  room 
to  doubt  your  probity.  Observe  fully  and  entirely  the  faith  of  your 
promise  whenever  made.  No  such  thing,  says  the  gentleman  from 
South  Carolina,  [MR.  CLOWNEY]  this  morning.  If  you  have  made  a 
contract,  no  matter,  you  had  no  constitutional  power  to  do  so,  there 
fore  cease  your  efforts  to  fulfill  your  engagements.  And  there  the 
gentleman  would  stop  ;  he  goes  no  further.  What  a  beautiful  exam 
ple  of  political  morality  would  you  then  exhibit!  Some  years  ago 
you  entered  into  a  contract,  a  treaty,  with  three  sovereign  States. 
You  have  received  from  them  all  they  agreed  to  give  you.  You 
have  tlidr  money  in  your  pockets.  Now  you  turn  to  these  States, 
with  all  seeming  honesty,  and  say,  true,  I  promised,  but  I  had  no 
right  to  promise,  my  conscience  is  affected,  I  have  sinned,  I  repent,  I 
will  do  so  no  more,  but  I  will  keep  your  money.  I  cannot  violate 
my  conscience  by  doing  as  I  agreed.  Oh,  no,  that  is  too  wicked ;  I 


240  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

pray  you  do  not  ask  it ;  but  still  I  shall  keep  the  money  you  paid  me. 
Yesterday  my  friend  from  Kentucky  [MR.  CALHOUN],  with  a  power 
of  argument  and  generosity  of  sentiment  equally  honorable  to  his 
head  and  heart,  spoke  in  favor  of  this  bill ;  he  adverted  to  certain 
objections  made  by  his  colleagues  [MESSRS.  GRAVES  and  UNDERWOOD]. 
They  had  opposed  the  bill  as  partial  in  its  operation,  as  giving  to  the 
three  States  through  which  the  road  passes  a  disbursement  of  money 
which  Kentucky  was  not  permitted  to  enjoy.  He  said  the  disburse 
ments  in  Indiana  would  flow  into  Louisville,  in  Kentucky,  where 
goods  and  even  liquors  would  be  bought,  with  which  the  labor  on 
the  road  would  be  paid.  Upon  this  another  gentleman  from  South 
Carolina  [MR.  PICKENS]  takes  fire.  "This,"  said  he,  "shows  the 
demoralizing  tendency  of  the  system !  This  is  the  motive  to  vote 
appropriations,  that  money  be  raised  to  buy  whisky  for  the  poor 
laborer  to  drink!"  Sir,  I  have  no  objection  to  the  gentleman's  moral 
lectures,  but  do  not  see  the  necessity  of  throwing  his  moral  sensibili 
ties  into  convulsions  at  the  sight  of  a  glass  of  punch,  while  he  can 
look  with  a  sanctimonious  composure  at  broken  promises  and  vio 
lated  national  faith. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  have  one  word  to  say,  before  I  sit  down,  to  the 
gentleman  from  Kentucky  [MR.  UNDERWOOD].  He  spoke  the  other 
day  in  opposition  to  this  bill.  He  did  not  deny  that  the  Cumber 
land  road  might  be  useful ;  but,  as  he  could  obtain  no  money  here  to 
enable  his  people  to  build  dams  and  make  slack-water  navigation  on 
Green  river,  he  would  not  help  us  to  make  a  road  on  the  northern 
side  of  the  Ohio.  And  then  the  gentleman  proceeded  in  a  grave 
disquisition  upon  our  constitutional  powers  to  make  roads  and  im 
prove  rivers.  What  says  the  Constitution?  "Congress  shall  have 
power  to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations,  among  the  several 
States,  and  with  the  Indian  tribes?"  What  is  the  gentleman's  com 
mentary?  "You  have,"  says  he,  "a  clear  and  undoubted  right  to 
improve  rivers,  but  not  so  of  roads."  And  why,  Mr.  Speaker, 
why?  Do  you,  sir,  remember  the  reason  for  this  distinction?  It 
was  this:  "Providence,"  says  the  gentleman,  "has  marked  out  riv 
ers  as  the  proper  channels  and  avenues  of  commerce."  What  a 
beautiful  and  exalted  piety  is  here  shedding  its  clear  light  upon  the 
dark  mysteries  of  constitutional  law !  And  then  how  logical  the  con 
clusion!  Thus  runs  the  argument:  "Since  it  is  not  the  will  of  God 
that  commerce  should  be  carried  on  on  dry  land,  but  only  on  the 
water,  the  powers  over  commerce,  given  in  the  Constitution  by  our 


ON    THE    CUMBERLAND    ROAD.  241 

pious  ancestors,  must  be  understood  as  limited  by  the  Divine  com 
mands;  and  therefore,"  says  he,  "you  have  power  to  remove  sand 
bars  and  islands,  and  blow  up  rocks  out  of  rivers  and  creeks,  to 
make  a  channel  which  Providence  has  begun  and  left  unfinished ;  but 
beware,"  he  would  say,  "how  you  cut  down  a  tree,  or  remove  a 
rock,  on  the  dry  land,  to  complete  what  Providence  has  begun  there. 
You  have  no  power  by  law  to  do  this  last ;  beside,  it  is  impious,  it  is 
not  the  will  of  God." 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  know  of  no  parallel  to  this  charming  philosphy, 
unless  it  be  found  in  the  sayings  of  Mause  Hedrigg,  an  elderly  Scotch 
lady,  who  figures  in  one  of  Sir  Walter  Scott's  novels.  In  one  of 
her  evangelical  moods,  she  rebuked  her  son  Cuddie  for  using  a  fan, 
or  any  work  of  art,  to  clean  his  barley.  She  said  it  was  an  awsome 
denial  o'  Providence  not  to  wait  his  own  time,  when  he  would  surely 
send  wind  to  winnow  the  chaff  out  of  the  grain.  In  the  same  spirit 
of  enlightened  philosophy  does  the  gentleman  exhort  us  in  Ohio, 
Indiana  and  Illinois  to  cease  our  impious  road-making,  and  wait  the 
good  time  of  Providence,  who  will,  as  he  seems  to  think,  surely  send 
a  river  to  run  from  Cumberland  over  the  Alleghanies,  across  the 
Ohio,  and  so  on,  in  its  heaven-directed  course,  to  St.  Louis.  Mr. 
Speaker,  the  gentleman  from  Kentucky  is  not  the  author  of  this 
theory.  Our  Atlantic  brethren,  especially  of  the  South,  have  long 
held  the  same  doctrine.  They  have  long  since  discovered  that  our 
glorious  Constitution  was  nothing  more  at  last  than  a  fish !  made  for 
the  water,  and  which  can  only  live  in  the  water.  According  to  their 
views,  he  is  a  goodly  fish,  of  marvelous  proper  uses  and  functions 
while  you  keep  him  in  the  water ;  but  the  moment  he  touches  dry 
land,  lo !  he  suffocates  and  dies.  The  only  difference  between  this 
school  of  constitutional  lawyers  and  the  gentleman  from  Kentucky  is 
this :  he  believes  your  Constitution  is  a  fish  that  thrives  in  all  zvatcrs, 
and  especially  in  Green  river  slack-water;  whereas,  his  brethren  of 
the  South  insist  that  he  can  only  live  in  salt  water.  With  them  the 
doctrine  is,  wherever  the  tide  ceases  to  flow  he  dies.  He  can  live 
and  thrive  in  a  little  tide  creek,  which  a  thirsty  mosquito  would  drink 
dry  in  a  hot  day;  but  place  him  on  or  under  the  majestic  wave  of 
the  Mississippi,  and  in  an  instant  he  expires.  Mr.  Speaker,  who 
can  limit  the  range  of  science?  What  hand  can  stay  the  march  of 
mind?  Heretofore  we  have  studied  the  science  of  law  to  help  us  in 
our  understanding  of  the  Constitution.  Some  have  brought  meta 
physical  learning  to  this  aid.  But  now,  in  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
17 


242  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

teenth  century,  these  labors  are  all  ended.  Ichthyology,  sir,  is  the 
key  to  open  all  the  doors  that  have  hitherto  barred  our  approaches 
to  truth.  According  to  this  new  school  of  philosophy,  if  you  just 
teach  coming  generations  the  "nature  of  fish,"  those  great  problems 
in  constitutional  law  that  vexed  and  worried  the  giant  intellects  of 
Hamilton,  Madison  and  Marshall,  are  at  once  revealed  and  made  plain 
to  the  dullest  peasant  in  the  land.  Sir,  if  I  appear  to  trifle  with 
this  grave  subject,  the  fault  is  not  mine ;  it  arises  from  the  singular 
nature  and  contrarient  character  of  those  arguments  which  I  am  most 
unwillingly  compelled  to  combat. 

The  gentleman  from  Kentucky  [MR.  UNDERWOOD]  has  inquired, 
with  a  very  significant  look,  what  has  become  of  the  three  per  cent, 
fund,  given  to  the  States  for  improvements  within  their  respective 
limits.  He  says  he  has  inquired  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
and  he  can  give  him  no  account  of  the  disposition  the  Western 
States  may  have  made  of  this  fund,  and  hence  the  gentleman  seemed 
to  infer  that  no  one  could  tell  him  anything  satisfactory  on  the  sub 
ject.  Sir,  if  your  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  is  the  only  source  of 
information,  then  are  the  fountains  of  knowledge  scanty  indeed,  and 
nearly  dried  up  with  us.  If  everything  is  unknown  which  he  does 
not  know,  if  we  can  see  nothing  which  has  not  been  revealed  to  him, 
why,  then,  the  Lord  help  us;  the  lights  of  the  age  burn  dimly 
enough,  and  must  be  well-nigh  extinct.  Sir,  if  the  gentleman, 
instead  of  consulting  the  "Penny  Magazine"  of  the  Treasury,  had 
gone  to  the  libraries  of  this  city,  and  looked  into  the  statistics  of 
these  States,  he  would  have  found  that  this  fund  had  been  faithfully, 
to  the  last  dollar,  expended  in  making  roads  "to  and  through"  the 
public  lands  in  the  States ;  thus  increasing  the  value  and  hastening 
the  sale  of  your  national  property.  The  gentleman  reproaches  the 
three  States  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Ohio  for  having  obtained  from 
the  national  domain  large  grants  for  making  roads  and  canals.  Does 
not  the  gentleman  know  that  in  every  instance  you  have  received  an 
equivalent  for  these  lands,  by  obtaining  from  the  States  or  companies 
the  right  to  carry  your  mails,  arms,  troops  and  munitions  of  war, 
over  such  roads  or  canals,  at  all  times  free  of  charge?  If  you 
gave  the  alternate  sections  of  land  for  a  road  or  canal,  you  held  up 
the  remaining  section  at  double  your  minimum  price,  and  have 
always  realized  it,  and  thus  made  money  for  yourselves  out  of  the 
capital  and  labor  of  the  States,  while  you  boast  the  transaction  as  a 
benevolence  to  others. 


ON    THE    CUMBERLAND    ROAD.  243 

But,  sir,  Kentucky  should  be  the  last  State  in  the  Union  to 
raise    an    argument    of  this   kind    against  her  sisters    of  the    West. 
How  came  she  by  the  whole  of  that  very  Green  river  country  which 
now  comprises  one-fourth  of  that  State  ?     Virginia  -had  reserved  that 
territory  to  satisfy  her  Revolutionary  debt  to  her  troops.     When  she 
ceded  the  Northwestern  territory  to  the  United  States,   she  reserved 
the  land  between  the  Little  Miami  and  Scioto  rivers  ( now  in  Ohio ) 
as  a  residuary  fund  for  the  satisfaction  of  her  Revolutionary  land 
warrants ;  if  the  lands  reserved  for  that  purpose  in  Kentucky  should 
prove    insufficient.      Well,    sir,    what    happened?     Soon    after    this, 
Kentucky  seized  upon  the  whole  Green  river  country,  and  refused  to 
the  war-worn  veteran  of  the  Revolution  the  right  to  locate  his  war 
rants  there.      The  consequence  was,  the  whole  country  reserved  in 
Ohio  was  exhausted,   and    the    Virginia    claims,    to  the  amount  of 
many  millions,  have  been  lately  paid  of  the  Treasury  of  the  Union 
in  the  shape  of  land  scrip.      Sir,  I  have  said  this  domain,  thus  seized 
by  Kentucky,  was  equal  to  one-fourth  part  of  the  State.      Now,  sup 
pose  you  had  given  to  Ohio,   Indiana  and  Illinois,  what  Kentucky 
received — one-fourth  part  of  all  the    lands    within    their   respective 
limits — sir,   it  would  have  constructed  this  road  through  their  terri 
tories  ten  times  over.      And  yet,  with  these  facts  all  before  him,  the 
gentleman  sits  weeping  over  the  dams  and  slack-water  of  Green  river 
like  a  froward  child,  spoiled  by  too  much  indulgence,  complaining  of 
its  mother's  partiality  to  the  really  much  less  favored  members  of 
our  common  family.     Sir,  this  is  unlike  Kentucky;  it  is  unlike  the 
uniform   justice    and    generosity    of  both    the   gentlemen    [MESSRS. 
GRAVES  and  UNDERWOOD],  who  have  so  vehemently  opposed  this  bill. 
I  beseech  them  to  desist.      Cease  to  drive  this  Jew's  bargain  with 
your  sister  States.      Relax  the  miser's  grip  you  have  laid  upon  your 
neighbor's  rights.     Throw  away  the  knife  of  Shylock,  clothe  your 
selves    in  the  robes    of  justice   and  generosity.     Stand  out  in  your 
true    characters,   and  in  the    proper  costume    of  your  noble   State. 
Look  upon  this  bill  with  the  eye  of  the  American  statesman.     The 
interests  of  the  whole  valley  we  inhabit  in  common  are  the  same. 
You  cannot  separate  them  by  lines  or  rivers.      Sir,  the  same  cloud 
that  dispenses  its  fertilizing  showers  upon  Kentucky,  drops  fatness 
upon  the  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana  and  Illinois.     The  same  sun  that 
warms  vegetation  into  early  and  vigorous  life  on  the  rich  plantations 
of  Kentucky,   also  mellows  the  fruit  and  ripens  the  harvests    that 
cover  the  vast  plains  outstretched  upon  the  right  bank  of  the  Ohio. 


244  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

The  God  of  Nature  has  decreed  us  a  common  lot,  and  it  is  vain  and 
impious  to  interpose  our  feeble  opposition  to  His  will. 

Mr.  Speaker,  some  gentlemen  have  complained  that  one  section 
of  land  out  of  every  thirty-six  has  been  given  to  the  Western  States 
for  the  use  of  common  schools.  Do  gentlemen  recollect  to  whom 
this  benefit  results  ?  Who  are  they  that  inhabit  the  great  valleys  of 
the  West?  Emigrants  surely  from  the  old  States  of  the  South  and 
East.  The  children  to  be  educated  there  are  your  children.  Sir,  we 
heard  (some  at  least)  an  English  gentleman  [MR.  BUCKINGHAM],  in 
one  of  his  interesting  lectures  lately  delivered  in  this  city,  say,  when 
speaking  of  British  emigration  to  America,  that  he  was  sorry  they 
had  not  sent  to  this  country  better  specimens  of  their  population. 
Sir,  I  can  say  to  my  friends  on  this  side  of  the  mountains,  with  equal 
sincerity,  as  to  some  of  those  you  sent  out,  "I  am  sorry  you  did  not 
send  us  better  specimens."  But  the  truth  is,  we  get  in  the  West  the 
very  best  and  the  very  worst  of  your  population.  The  poor  come 
there  for  bread,  and  the  enterprising  and  industrious  come  to  find  a 
field  which  gives  ample  scope  to  their  energies  and  rewards  to  their 
labor.  This  fund,  then,  is  for  the  education  of  the  poor,  and  the  rich, 
too,  if  any  such  there  be,  which  you  send  in  masses  every  year  to  the 
West.  And  I  can  assure  gentlemen  it  has  been  faithfully  applied  in 
Ohio.  It  has  been  added  to  by  heavy  taxation  upon  our  people. 
Some  gentlemen  (I  speak  it  in  no  spirit  of  pride  or  vain  boasting), 
some  gentlemen  from  the  old  States  might  learn  something  new  to 
them  in  the  history  of  civilization,  would  they  but  visit  that  Western 
world,  of  which  they  often  seem  to  me  to  know  very  little.  They 
might  see  there,  in  the  very  spot  where  but  yesterday  the  wild  beasts 
of  the  wilderness  seized  their  prey  by  night,  and  made  their  covert 
lair  by  day,  on  that  same  spot  to-day  stands  the  common  school- 
house,  filled  alike  with  the  children  of  the  rich  and  poor — those  chil 
dren  who  are  to  be  the  future  voters,  officers  and  statesmen  of  the 
Republic.  Over  that  vast  region,  so  lately  red  with  the  blood  of 
savage  war,  the  seed-fields  of  knowledge  are  planted,  and  a  smiling 
harvest  of  civilization  springs  up.  And  there,  too,  may  be  seen 
what  a  Christian  statesman  might  well  admire.  The  school-master  is 
not  alone.  That  holy  religion,  which  is  at  last  the  only  sure  basis  of 
permanent  social  or  political  improvement,  has  there  its  voices  crying 
in  the  wilderness.  Upon  the  almost  burning  embers  of  the  war-fire, 
round  which  some  barbarous  chief  but  yesterday  recounted  to  his 
listening  tribe,  with  horrid  exultation,  his  deeds  of  savage  heroism, 


ON    THE    CUMBERLAND    ROAD.  245 

to-day  is  built  a  temple  dedicated  to  that  religion  which  announces 
"peace  on  earth  and  good  will  toward  men."  Yes,  sir,  all  over  that 
land,  side  by  side  with  the  humble  school-house,  stand  those 

"  Steeple-towers, 
And  spires  whose  silent  finger  points  to  Heaven." 

Is  it,  sir,  can  it  be  in  the  heart  of  an  American  statesman,  to 
check  in  its  progress,  or  crush  in  its  infancy,  a  social  and  political 
system  which  has  tendencies  and  fruits  like  this?  But,  sir,  I  find 
myself  tempted,  by  themes  so  full  of  hope,  to  wander,  as  some  may 
think,  into  subjects  having  a  bearing  upon  the  immediate  question, 
too  remote  to  justify  their  discussion  here.  I  beg  to  remind  this 
House  that  the  bill  now  before  it  is  a  part,  small,  indeed,  but  still  a 
part  of  a  system  of  policy  which  long  ago  you  established  for  the 
Western  country,  which  hitherto  you  have  cherished,  and  which, 
aided  by  the  patient,  persevering  labor  of  your  people  there,  has 
produced  the  happy  results  which  I  have  so  hastily  and  imperfectly 
laid  before  you.  I  feel  an  assured  confidence  that  I  do  not  plead  in 
vain  to  an  American  Congress  in  such  a  cause.  Still,  should  I  unhap 
pily  be  mistaken  in  this,  conscious  of  the  rectitude  of  my  own 
motives,  I  shall  cheerfully  submit  to  whatever  decision  it  shall  please 
the  House  to  make. 


REPLY  TO  GENERAL  CRARY. 


ON  the  I4th  of  February,  1840,  the  HON.  ISAAC  E.  CRARY,  of  Michigan,  having 
in  the  course  of  his  remarks  in  Committee  of  the  Whole— on  referring  the  memorial  of 
the  National  Road  Convention,  held  at  Terre  Haute,  Indiana,  to  the  Committee  of 
Ways  and  Means,  animadverted  upon  the  Military  conduct  of  Gen.  Harrison,  MR.  COR- 
WIN,  on  the  next  day,  addressed  the  House  as  follows  : 

MR.  SPEAKER: 

I  am  admonished,  by  the  eager  solicitations  of  gentlemen 
around  me  to  give  way  for  a  motion  to  adjourn,  of  that  practice  of 
the  House  which  accords  us  more  of  leisure  on  this  day  than  is  al 
lowed  us  on  any  other  day  of  the  week.  The  servants  of  other  good 
masters  are,  I  believe,  indulged  in  a  sort  of  saturnalium  in  the  after 
noon  on  Saturday ;  and  we  have  supposed  that  our  kind  masters,  the 
people,  might  be  willing  to  grant  us,  their  most  faithful  slaves,  a  sim 
ilar  respite  from  toil.  It  is  now  past  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
and  I  should  be  very  willing  to  pause  in  discussion,  were  I  not  urged 
by  those  menacing  cries  of  "Go  on,"  from  various  parts  of  the 
House.  In  this  state  of  things,  I  cannot  hope  to  summon  to  any 
thing  like  attention  the  unquiet  minds  of  many,  or  the  jaded  and 
worn-down  faculties  of  a  still  larger  portion  of  the  House.  I  hope, 
however,  the  House  will  not  withhold  from  me  a  boon  which  I  have 
often  seen  granted  to  others,  that  is,  the  privilege  of  speaking  with 
out  being  oppressed  by  a  crowded  audience,  which  is  accompanied 
by  this  additional  advantage,  that  the  orator,  thus  situated,  can  at 
least  listen  to  and  hear  himself. 

If  you,  Mr.  Speaker,  and  the  members  of  this  House,  have 
given  that  attention  to  the  speech  of  the  gentleman  from  Michigan 
[MR.  CRARY],  made  yesterday,  which  some  of  us  here  thought  it  our 
duty  to  bestow,  I  am  sure  the  novelty  of  the  scene,  to  say  nothing 
more  of  it,  must  have  arrested  your  curiosity,  if,  indeed,  it  did  not 
give  rise  to  profound  reflection. 

I  need  not  remind  the  House  that  it  is  a  rule  here  (as  I  suppose 

(246) 


REPLY    TO    GENERAL    CRARY.  247 

it  is  everywhere  else  where  men  dispute  by  any  rule  at  all )  that  what 
is  said  in  debate  should  be  relevant  and  pertinent  to  the  subject 
under  discussion.  The  question  before  us  is  a  proposition  to  instruct 
the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means  to  report  a  bill  granting  four 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  to  continue  the  construction  of 
the  Cumberland  road  in  the  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana  and  Illinois. 
The  objections  to  the  measure  are,  either  that  this  Government  is  in 
no  sense  bound  by  compact  to  make  the  road,  or  that  it  is  not  a 
work  of  any  national  concern,  but  merely  of  local  interest,  or  that 
the  present  exhausted  state  of  the  Treasury  will  not  warrant  the 
appropriation,  admitting  the  object  of  it  to  be  fairly  within  the  con 
stitutional  province  of  Congress. 

If  the  gentleman  from  South  Carolina  [MR.  PICKENS],  and  the 
gentleman  from  Maine  [MR.  PARRIS],  who  consider  the  Cumberland 
road  a  work  of  mere  sectional  advantage  to  a  very  small  portion  of 
the  people,  have  attended  to  the  sage  disquisitions  of  the  gentleman 
from  Michigan  on  the  art  of  war,  they  must  now  either  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  almost  the  whole  of  the  gentleman's  speech  is  what 
old-fashioned  people  would  call  a  'Lnon  sequitur^  or  else  that  this 
road  connects  itself  with  not  merely  the  military  defenses  of  the 
Union,  but  is  interwoven  most  intimately  with  the  progress  of  sci 
ence,  and  especially  that  most  difficult  of  all  sciences,  the  proper 
application  of  strategy  to  the  exigencies  of  barbarian  warfare.  It 
will  be  seen  that  the  far-seeing  sagacity  and  long-reaching  understand 
ing  of  the  gentleman  from  Michigan  has  discovered  that,  before  we 
can  vote  with  a  clear  conscience  on  the  instructions  proposed,  we 
must  be  well  informed  as  to  the  number  of  Indians  who  fought  at 
the  battle  of  Tippecanoe  in  1811;  how 'these  savages  were  painted, 
whether  red,  black  or  blue,  or  whether  all  were  blended  on  their  bar 
barian  faces.  Further,  according  to  his  views  of  the  subject,  before 
we  vote  money  to  make  a  road,  we  must  know  and  approve  of  what 
General  Harrison  thought,  said  and  did  at  the  battle  of  Tippecanoe. 

Again,  upon  this  process  of  reasoning,  we  must  inquire  where 
a  general  should  be  when  a  battle  begins,  especially  in  the  night, 
and  what  his  position  during  the  fight,  and  where  he  should  be  found 
when  it  is  over ;  and  particularly  how  a  Kentuckian  behaves  himself 
when  he  hears  an  Indian  warwhoop  in  day  or  night.  And,  after  set 
tling  all  these  puzzling  propositions,  still  we  must  fully  understand 
how  and  by  whom  the  battle  of  the  Thames  was  fought,  and  in  \vhat 
manner  it  then  and  there  became  our  troops,  regular  and  militia,  to 


248  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

conduct  themselves.  Sir,  it  must  be  obvious  that  if  these  topics  are 
germain  to  the  subject,  then  does  the  Cumberland  road  encompass 
all  the  interests  and  all  the  subjects  that  touch  the  rights,  duties  and 
destinies  of  the  civilized  world ;  and  I  hope  we  shall  hear  no  more 
from  Southern  gentlemen  of  the  narrow,  sectional  or  unconstitutional 
character  of  the  proposed  measure.  That  branch  of  the  subject  is, 
I  hope,  forever  quieted,  perhaps  unintentionally,  by  the  gentleman 
from  Michigan.  His  military  criticism,  if  it  has  not  answered  the 
purposes  intended,  has  at  least,  in  this  way,  done  some  service  to 
the  Cumberland  road.  And  if  my  poor  halting  comprehension  has 
not  blundered  in  pursuing  the  soaring  upward  flight  of  my  friend 
from  Michigan,  he  has  in  this  discussion  written  a  new  chapter  in  the 
"regulce  pJiilosopJiandi"  and  made  not  ourselves  only,  but  the  whole 
world  his  debtors  in  gratitude,  by  overturning  the  old  worn-out  prin 
ciples  of  the  "inductive  system." 

Mr.  Speaker,  there  have  been  many  and  ponderous  volumes 
written,  and  various  unctuous  discourses  delivered,  on  the  doctrines 
of  "association."  Dugald  Stewart,  a  Scotch  gentlemen  of  no 
mean  pretensions  in  his  day,  thought  much  and  wrote  much  con 
cerning  that  principle  in  mental  philosophy ;  and  Brown,  another  of 
the  same  school,  but  of  later  date,  has  also  written  and  said  much 
on  the  subject.  This  latter  gentleman,  I  think,  calls  it  "sugges 
tion;"  but  never,  I  venture  to  say,  did  any  metaphysician,  pushing 
his  researches  furthest  and  deepest  into  that  occult  science,  dream 
that  would  come  to  pass  which  we  have  discovered  and  clearly  devel 
oped — that  is,  that  two  subjects  so  unlike  as  an  appropriation  to  a 
road  in  1840,  and  the  tactics  proper  in  Indian  war  in  1811,  were  not 
merely  akin,  but  actually,  identically,  the  same. 

Mr.  Speaker,  this  discussion,  I  should  think,  if  not  absolutely 
absurd  and  utterly  ridiculous,  which  my  respect  for  the  gentleman 
from  Michigan  and  the  American  Congress  will  not  allow  me  to  sup 
pose,  has  elicted  another  trait  in  the  American  character  which  has 
been  the  subject  of  great  admiration  with  intelligent  travelers  from 
the  old  world.  Foreigners  have  admired  the  ease  with  which  we 
Yankees,  as  they  call  us,  can  turn  our  hands  to  any  business  or  pur 
suit,  public  or  private,  and  this  has  been  brought  forward  bytyrfr 
own  people  as  a  proof  that  man,  in  this  great  and  free  republic, 
is  a  being  very  far  superior  to  the  same  animal  in  other  parts  of  the 
globe  less  favored  than  ours.  A  proof  of  the  most  convincing  char 
acter  of  this  truth,  so  flattering  to  our  national  pride,  is  exhibited 


REPLY  TO  GENERAL  CRARY.  249 

before  our  eyes  in  the  gentleman  from  Michigan  delivering  to  the 
world  a  grave  lecture  on  the  campaigns  of  General  Harrison,  includ 
ing  a  variety  of  very  interesting  military  events  in  the  years  1811, 
1812  and  1813.  In  all  other  countries,  and  in  all  former  times, 
before  now,  a  gentleman  who  would  either  speak  or  be  listened  to, 
on  the  subject  of  war,  involving  subtile  criticisms  on  strategy,  and 
careful  reviews  of  marches,  sieges,  battles,  regular  and  casual,  and 
irregular  onslaughts,  would  be  required  to  show,  first,  that  he  had 
studied  much,  investigated  fully,  and  digested  well,  the  science  and 
history  of  his  subject.  But  here,  sir,  no  such  painful  preparation  is 
required ;  witness  the  gentleman  from  Michigan.  He  has  announced 
to  the  House  that  he  is  a  militia  general  on  the  peace  establishment ! 
That  he  is  a  lawyer  we  know,  tolerable  well  read  in  Tidd's  Practice 
and  Espinasse's  Nisi  Prius.  These  studies,  so  happily  adapted  to  the 
subject  of  war,  with  an  appointment  in  the  militia  in  time  of  peace, 
furnish  him  at  once  with  all  the  knowledge  necessary  to  discourse  to 
us,  as  from  high  authority,  upon  all  the  mysteries  in  the  "trade  of 
death."  Again,  Mr.  Speaker,  it  must  occur  to  every  one  that  we, 
to  whom  these  questions  are  submitted  and  these  criticisms  are 
addressed,  being  all  colonels  at  least,  and  most  of  us  like  the  gentle 
man  himself,  brigadiers,  are,  of  all  conceivable  tribunals,  best  quali 
fied  to  decide  any  nice  point  connected  with  military  science.  I 
hope  the  House  will  not  be  alarmed  by  an  impression  that  I  am 
about  to  discuss  one  or  the  other  of  the  millitary  questions  now 
before  us  at  length,  but  I  wish  to  submit  a  remark  or  two,  by  way  of 
preparing  us  for  a  proper  appreciation  of  the  merits  of  the  dis 
course  we  have  heard.  I  trust,  as  we  are  all  brother  officers,  that 
the  gentleman  from  Michigan  and  the  two  hundred  and  forty 
colonels  or  generals  of  this  honorable  House,  will  receive  what  I 
have  to  say,  as  coming  from  an  old  brother  in  arms,  and  addressed 
to  them  in  a  spirit  of  candor, 

"  Such  as  becomes  comrades  free, 
Reposing  after  victory." 

Sir,  we  all  know  the  military  studies  of  the  gentleman  from 
Michigan  before  he  was  promoted.  I  take  it  to  be  beyond  a  reason 
able  doubt  that  he  had  perused  with  great  care  the  title-page  of 
"Baron  Steuben."  Nay,  I  go  further;  as  the  gentleman  has  inciden 
tally  assured  us  he  is  prone  to  look  into  musty  and  neglected  vol 
umes,  I  venture  to  assert,  without  vouching  the  fact  from  personal 
knowledge,  that  he  has  prosecuted  his  researches  so  far,  as  to  be  able 


250  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

to  know  that  the  rear  rank  stands  right  behind  the  front.  This,  I 
think,  is  fairly  inferable  from  what  I  understand  him  to  say  of  the 
two  lines  of  encampment  at  Tippecanoe.  Thus,  we  see,  Mr. 
Speaker,  that  the  gentleman  from  Michigan,  so  far  as  study  can  give 
us  knowledge  of  a  subject,  comes  before  us  with  claims  to  great  pro 
fundity.  But  this  is  a  subject  which,  of  all  others,  requires  the  aid 
of  actual  experience  to  make  us  wise.  Now  the  gentleman  from 
Michigan,  being  a  militia  general,  as  he  has  told  us,  his  brother  offi 
cers,  in  that  simple  statement  has  revealed  the  glorious  history  of 
toils,  privations,  sacrifices  and  bloody  scenes,  through  which  we 
know,  from  experience  and  observation,  a  militia  officer  in  time  of 
peace  is  sure  to  pass.  We  all,  in  fancy,  now  see  the  gentleman  from 
Michigan  in  that  most  dangerous  and  glorious  event  in  the  life  of  a 
militia  general  on  the  peace  establishment — a  parade-day !  The  day 
for  which  all  the  other  days  of  his  life  seem  to  have  been  made. 
We  can  see  the  troops  in  motion ;  umbrellas,  hoe  and  ax-handles  and 
other  like  deadly  implements  of  war  overshadowing  all  the  field, 
when  lo !  the  leader  of  the  host  approaches, 

"  Far  off  his  coming  shines ;" 

his  plume,  white,  after  the  fashion  of  the  great  Bourbon,  is  of  ample 
length,  and  reads  its  doleful  history  in  the  bereaved  necks  and  bos 
oms  of  forty  neighboring  hen-roosts !  Like  the  great  Suwaroff,  he 
seems  somewhat  careless  in  forms  and  points  of  dress,  hence  his 
epaulettes  may  be  on  his  shoulders,  back  or  sides,  but  still  gleaming, 
gloriously  gleaming  in  the  sun.  Mounted  he  is,  too,  let  it  not  be  for 
gotten.  Need  I  describe  to  the  colonels  and  generals  of  this  honor 
able  House  the  steed  which  heroes  bestride  on  such  occasions  ?  No, 
I  see  the  memory  of  other  days  is  with  you.  You  see  before  you 
the  gentleman  from  Michigan  mounted  on  his  crop-eared,  bushy- 
tailed  mare,  the  singular  obliquities  of  whose  hinder  limbs  is  de 
scribed  by  that  most  expressive  phrase,  "sickle  hams" — her  height 
just  fourteen  hands,  "all  told;"  yes,  sir,  there  you  see  his  "steed 
that  laughs  at  the  shaking  of  the  spear;"  that  is,  his  "war-horse 
whose  neck  is  clothed  with  thunder."  Mr.  Speaker,  we  have  glow 
ing  descriptions  in  history  of  Alexander  the  Great  and  his  war-horse, 
Bucephalus,  at  the  head  of  the  invincible  Macedonian  phalanx,  but, 
sir,  such  are  the  improvements  of  modern  times,  that  every  one 
must  see  that  our  militia  general,  with  his  crop-eared  mare,  with 
bushy  tail  and  sickle  ham,  would  literally  frighten  off  a  battle-field 
a  hundred  Alexanders.  But,  sir,  to  the  history  of  the  parade-day. 


REPLY  TO  GENERAL  CRARY.  251 

The  general,  thus  mounted  and  equipped,  is  in  the  field  and  ready 
for  action.     On  the  eve  of  some  desperate  enterprise,  such  as  giving 
order  to  shoulder  arms,  it  may  be,  there  occurs  a  crisis,  one  of  the 
accidents  of  war  which  no  sagacity  could  foresee  or  prevent     A 
cloud  rises  and  passes   over  the  sun  1     Here  an  occasion  occurs  for 
the  display  of  that  greatest  of  all  traits  in  the  character  of  a  com 
mander,   that  tact  which  enables  him  to  seize  upon  and  turn  to  good 
account  events  unlocked  for  as  they  arise.     Now  for  the  caution 
wherewith  the  Roman  Fabius  foiled  the  skill  and  courage  of  Hanni 
bal.     A  retreat  is  ordered,  and  troops  and  general,  in  a  twinkling, 
areijound  safely  bivouacked   in   a  neighboring  grocery!     But  even 
here  the  general  still  has  room  for  the   exhibition  of  heroic  deeds. 
Hot  from  the  field,  and  chafed  with  the  untoward  events  of  the  day, 
your  general  unsheaths  his  trenchant  blade,  eighteen  inches  in  length, 
as  you  will  well  remember,  and  with  an  energy  and  remorseless  fury 
he  slices  the  water-melons  that  lie  in  heaps  around  him,  and  shares  A 
them  with  his  surviving  friends.     Other  of  the  sinews  of  war  are  not 
wanting  here.     Whisky,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  great  leveler  of  modern 
times,  is  here  also,  and  the  shells  of  the  water-melons  are  filled  to 
the  brim.      Here  again,  Mr.  Speaker,  is  shown  how  the  extremes  of 
barbarism  and  civilization  meet.      As  the  Scandinavian  heroes  of  old, 
after  the  fatigues  of  war,  drank  wine  from  the  skulls  of  their  slaugh 
tered-  enemies  in  Odin's  Halls,   so  now  our  militia  general  and  his 
forces,    from    the    skulls    of   melons    thus    vanquished,    in    copious 
draughts    of  whisky,   assuage  the    heroic    fire    of  their   souls,   after 
the  bloody  scenes  of  a  parade-day.      But,  alas  for  this  short-lived 
race  of  ours,  all  things  will  have  an  end,  and  so  even  is  it  with  the 
glorious  achievements  of  our  general.     Time  is  on  the  wing,  and 
will  not  stay  his  flight;   the   sun,    as  if   frightened  at  the  mighty 
events  of  the  day,  rides  down  the  sky,  and  at  the  close  of  the  day 
when  "the  hamlet  is  still,"  the    curtain    of  night   drops    upon   the 
scene ; 

"  And  glory,  like  the  phoenix  in  its  fires, 
Exhales  its  odors,  blazes  and  expires." 

Such,  sir,  has  been  the  experience  in  war  of  the  gentleman 
from  Michigan.  We  know  this  from  the  simple  annunciation  that  he 
is  and  has  been  a  brigadier  of  militia  in  time  of  peace;  and  now, 
having  a  full  understanding  of  the  qualifications  of  our  learned  gen 
eral,  both  from  study  and  practice,  I  hope  the  House  will  see  that  it 
should  give  its  profound  reflection  to  his  discourses  on  the  art  of 


252  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

war.  And  this  it  will  be  more  inclined  to,  when  we  take  into  view 
that  the  gentleman  has,  in  his  review  of  General  Harrison's  cam 
paigns,  modestly  imputed  to  the  latter  great  mistakes,  gross  blun 
ders,  imbecility,  and  even  worse  than  this,  as  I  shall  show  hereafter. 
The  force,  too,  of  the  lecture  of  our  learned  and  experienced  friend 
from  Michigan  is  certainly  greatly  enhanced,  when  we  consider 
another  admitted  fact,  which  is,  that  the  general  whose  imbecility 
and  errors  he  has  discovered,  has  not,  like  the  gentleman  from  Mich 
igan,  the  great  advantage  of  serving  in  water-melon  campaigns,  but 
only  fought  fierce  Indians  in  the  dark  forests  of  the  West,  under 
such  stupid  fellows  as  Anthony  Wayne,  and  was  afterward  appointed 
to  the  command  of  large  armies  by  the  advice  of  such  an  inexperi 
enced  boy  as  Gov.  Shelby,  the  hero  of  King's  Mountain. 

And  now,  Mr.  Speaker,  as  I  have  the  temerity  to  entertain 
doubts,  and  with  great  deference  to  differ  in  my  opinions  on  this  mil 
itary  question  with  the  gentleman  from  Michigan,  I  desire  to  state  a 
few  historical  facts  concerning  General  Harrison,  whom  the  general 
from  Michigan  has  pronounced  incapable,  imbecile,  and,  as  I  shall 
notice  hereafter,  something  worse  even  than  these.  General  Harri 
son  was  commissioned  by  General  Washington  an  officer  in  the  regu 
lar  army  of  the  United  States  in  the  year  1791.  He  served  as  aid 
to  General  Anthony  Wayne  in  the  campaign  against  the  Indians, 
which  resulted  in  the  battle  of  the  Rapids  of  the  Maumee,  in  the  fall 
of  1794.  Thus,  in  his  youth,  he  was  selected  by  General  Wayne  as 
one  of  his  military  family.  And  what  did  this  youthful  officer  do  in 
that  memorable  battle  of  the  Rapids?  Here,  Mr.  Speaker,  let  me 
summon  a  witness,  merely  to  show  how  military  men  may  differ. 
The  witness  I  call  to  controvert  the  opinion  of  the  gentleman  from 
Michigan  is  General  Anthony  Wayne.  In  his  letter  to  the  Secretary 
of  War,  giving  an  account  of  the  battle  of  the  Rapids,  he  says : 

"My  faithful  and  gallant  Lieutenant  Harrison  rendered  the  most 
essential  services,  by  communicating  my  orders  in  every  direction, 
and  by  his  conduct  and  bravery  exciting  the  troops  to  press  for 
victory." 

Sir,  this  evidence  was  given  by  General  Wayne  in  the  year 
1794,  some  time,  I  imagine,  before  the  gentleman  from  Michigan 
was  born,  and  long  before  he  became  a  militia  general,  and  long, 
very  long,  before  he  ever  perused  the  title-page  of  Baron  Steuben. 
Mr.  Speaker,  let  me  remind  the  House,  in  passing,  that  this  battle 
and  victory  over  the  Indian  forces  of  the  Northwest,  in  which, 


REPLY  TO  GENERAL  CRARY.  253 

according  to  the  testimony  of  General  Wayne,  "Lieutenant  Harri 
son  rendered  the  most  essential  services  by  his  conduct  and  bravery," 
gave  peace  to  an  exposed  line  of  frontier,  extending  from  Pittsburg 
to  the  southern  borders  of  Tennessee.  It  was,  in  truth,  the  close  of 
the  war  of  the  Revolution,  for  the  Indians  who  took  part  with  Great 
Britain  in  our  Revolutionary  struggle  never  laid  down  their  arms 
until  after  they  were  vanquished  by  Wayne  in  1794. 

We  now  come  to  see  something  of  the  man,  the  general,  whose 
military  history  our  able  and  experienced  general  from  Michigan  has 
reviewed.  We  know  that  debates  like  this  have  sometimes  been  had 
in  the  British  Parliament.  There,  I  believe^Jthe  di.sm.ssion  wa<= 
usually  conducted  by  those  in  the  House,  who  have  seen,  and  not 
merely  Iieatd  pf  service^  We  all  know  that  Colonel  Napier  has,  in 
several  volumes,  reviewed  the  campaigns  of  Wellington,  and  criti 
cised  the  movements  and  merits  of  Beresford,  and  Soult,  and 
Massena,  and  many  others,  quite,  yes,  I  say  quite  as  well  known  in 
military  history  as  any  of  us,  not  even  excepting  our  general  from 
Michigan.  We  respect  the  opinions  of  Napier,  because  we  know  he 
not  only  thougJil  of  war,  but  that  he  fought,  too.  Wejrespeci-  and 
admire  that  combination-  of  military  skill,  with  profound  statesman 
like  views,  which  we  find  in  "Caesar's  Commentaries,"  because  we 
know  the  "mighty  Julius"  was  a  soldier,  trained  in  the  field,  and 
inured  to  the  accidents  and  dangers  of  war.  But,  sir,  we  generals  of 
Congress  require  no  such  painful  discipline  to  -give  value  to  our  opin 
ions.  We  men  of  the  nineteenth  century  know  all  things  intuitively.— 
We  understand  perfectly  the  military  art  by  nature.  Yes,  sir,  the 
notions  of  the  gentleman  from  Michigan  agree  exactly  with  a  sage 
by  the  name  of  "Dogberry,"  who  insisted  that  "reading  and  writ 
ing  come  by  nature."  Mr.  Speaker,  we  have  heard  and  read  much 
of  the  "advance  of  knowledge,  the  improvement  of  the  species, 
and  the  great  march  of  mind,"  but  never  till  now  have  we  understood 
the  extent  of  meaning  in  these  pregnant  phrases.  For  instance,  the 
gentleman  from  Michigan  asserts  that  Genej^LIiarrisjQiL  Jias  none  of 
the  qualities  of  a  general  because,  at  the  battle  of  Tippecanoe,  he 
was  found  at  one  time  at  a  distance  from  his  tent,  urging  his  men  on 
to  battle.  He  exposed  his  person  too  much,  it  seems.  He  should 
have  staid  at  his  tent,  and  waited  for  the  officers  to  come  to  him  for 
orders.  Well,  sir,  see  now  to  what  conclusion  this  leads  us.  Napo 
leon  seized  a  standard  at  Lodi  and  rushed  in  front  of  his  columns 
across  a  narrow  bridge,  which  was  swept  by  a  whole  park  of  Ger- 


254  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

man  artillery.  Hence,  Napoleon  was  no  officer;  he  did  not  know 
how  to  command  an  army.  He,  like  Harrison,  exposed  his  person 
too  much.  Oh,  Mr.  Speaker,  what  a  pity  for  poor  Napoleon  that  he 
had  not  studied  Steuben,  and  slaughtered  water-melons  with  us  nat 
ural-born  generals  of  this  great  age  of  the  world !  Sir,  it  might  have 
altered  the  map  of  Europe ;  nay,  changed  the  destinies  of  the  world ! 

Again :  Alexander  the  Great  spurred  his  horse  foremost  into 
the  river,  and  led  his  Macedonians  across  the  Granicus  to  rout  the 
Persians  who  stood  full  opposed  on  the  other  side  of  the  stream. 
True,  this  youth  conquered  the  world  and  made  himself  master  of 
what  had  constituted  the  Medean,  Persian,  Assyrian  and  Chaldean 
empires.  Still,  according  to  the  judgment  of  us  warriors  by  nature, 
the  mighty  Macedonian  would  have  consulted  good  sense  by  coming 
over  here,  if,  indeed,  there  were  any  here  hereabouts  in  those  days, 
and  studying,  like  my  friend  from  Michigan,  first  Tidd's  Practice  and 
Espinasse's  Nisi  Prius  and  a  little  snatch  of  Steuben,  and  serving  as 
a  general  of  militia  awhile.  Sir,  Alexander  the  Great  might  have 
made  a  man  of  himself  in  the  art  of  war,  had  he  even  been  a  mem 
ber  of  our  Congress,  and  heard  us  colonels  discuss  the  subject  of  an 
afternoon  or  two.  Indeed,  Alexander,  or  Satan,  I  doubt  not,  would 
have  improved  greatly  in  strategy  by  observing,  during  this  session, 
the  tactics  of  the  Administration  party  on  the  New  Jersey  election 
question.  Mr.  Speaker,  this  objection  to  a  general,  because  he  will 
fight,  is  not  original  with  my  friend  from  Michigan.  I  remember  a 
great  authority,  in  point,  agreeing  with  the  gentleman  in  this.  __In 
the  times  of  the  Henrys,  4th  and  5th,  of  England,  there  lived  one 
Captain  Jack  Falstaff.  If  Shakespeare  may  be  trusted,  his.  opinions 
of  the  art  military  were  exactly  those  of  the  gentleman  from  Michi 
gan.  He  uniformly  declared  as  his  deliberate  judgment  on  the  sub 
ject,  that  "discretion  was  the  better  part  of  valor;"  and  this  is  an 
authority  for  the  gentleman.  But  who  shall  decide?...  Thus  the 
authority  stands — Alexander,  the  mighty  Greek,  and  Napoleon 
Bonaparte  and  Harrison  on  one  side,  and  Captain  John  Falstaff  and 
the  General  from  Michigan  or.  the  other!  Sir,  I  must  leave  a  ques 
tion  thus  sustained  by  authorities,  both  ways,  to  posterity.  Perhaps 
the  lights  of  another  age  may  enable  the  world  to  decide  it ;  I  con 
fess  my  inability  to  say  on  which  side  the  weight  of  authority  lies. 

I  hope  I  may  obtain  the  pardon  of  the  American  Congress  for 
adverting,  in  this  discussion,  to  another  matter,  gravely  put  forward 
by  the  gentleman  from  Michigan.  Without  the  slightest  feeling  of 


REPLY  TO  GENERAL  CRARY.  255 

disrespect  to  that  gentleman,  I  must  be  allowed  to  say  that  his  opin 
ions,  (hastily,  I  am  sure,)  obtruded  on  the  House  on  this  military 
question,  can  only  be  considered  as  subjects  of  merriment. 

But  I  come  to  notice,  since  I  am  compelled  to  it,  one  observa 
tion  of  the  gentleman,  which  I  feel  quite  certain,  on  reflection,  he 
will  regret  himself.  In  a  sort  of  parenthesis  in  his  speech,  he  said 
that  a  rumor  prevailed  at  the  time  (alluding  to  the  battle  of  Tippe- 
canoe)  that  Colonel  Joseph  H.  Davies,  of  Kentucky,  who  com 
manded  a  squadron  of  cavalry  there,  was,  by  some  trick  of  General 
Harrison,  mounted,  during  the  battle,  on  a  white  horse  belonging  to 
the  General,  and  that,  being  thus  conspicuous  in  the  fight,  .he  was  a 
mark  for  the  assailing  Indians,  and  fell  in  a  charge  at  the  head  of  his 
men.  The  gentleman  says  he  does  not  vouch  for  the  truth  of  this. 
Sir,  it  is  well  that  he  does  not  vouch  here  for  the  truth  of  a  long-ex 
ploded  slander.  It  requires  a  bold  man,  a  man  possessing  a  great 
deal  of  moral  courage,  to  make  even  an  allusion  to  a  charge  such  as 
that,  against  one  whose  only  possessions  in  this  world  are  his  char 
acter  for  courage  and[  conduct  in  war  in  his  country's  defense,  and 
his  unstained  integrity  in  the  various  civil  offices  it  has  been  his  duty 
to  occupy.  Did  not  the  gentleman  know  that  this  vile  story  was 
known  by  every  intelligent  man  west  of  the  mountains  to  be  totally 
without  foundation  ?  The  gentleman  seemed  to  appeal  to  the  gal 
lant  Kentuckians  to  prove  the  truth  of  this  innuendo.  He  spoke  of 
the  blood  of  their  countrymen  so  profusely  poured  out  at  Tippe- 
canoe,  as  if  they  would  give  countenance  to  the  idea  that  the  gallant 
Davies,  who  fell  in  that  engagement,  fell  a  victim  to  the  artifice  of 
the  commanding  general,  and  their  other  gallant  sons  who  fell  there, 
were  wantonly  sacrificed  by  the  gross  ignorance  of  General  Harrison 
in  Indian  warfare.  Now,  sir,  before  the  gentleman  made  his  appeal, 
he  should  have  remembered  a  few  historical  facts,  which,  if  known 
to  him,  as  I  should  suppose  they  were  to  every  other  man  twenty 
years  of  age  in  Western  America,  would  make  the  whole  speech  of 
that  gentleman  little  else  than  a  most  wanton  insult  to  the  under 
standing  of  the  people  and  Government  of  Kentucky.  Let  us 
briefly  notice  the  facts. 

In  November,  1811,  the  battle  of  Tippecanoe  was  fought. 
There  Colonel  Davies  and  Colonel  Owens,  with  other  Kentuckians, 
fell.  These,  says  the  gentleman,  (at  least  he  insinuates  it)  were  sac 
rificed  by  either  the  cowardly  artifice  or  by  the  ignorance  of  General 
Harrison.  Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  abhor  the  habit  of  open  flattery, 


256  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

nay,  I  do  not  like  to  look  in  the  face  of  a  man,  and  speak  of  him  in 
warm  terms  of  eulogium,  however  he  may  deserve  it;  but,  sir,  on 
this  occasion  I  am  obliged  to  say  what  history  will  attest  of  the  peo 
ple  of  Kentucky.  If  any  community  of  people  ever  lived,  from  the 
time  of  the  dispersion  on  the  plain  of  Shinar  up  to  this  day,  who 
were  literally  cradled  in  war,  it  is  to  be.  found  in  the  State  of  Ken 
tucky.  From  the  first  exploration  of  the  country  by  Daniel  Boone 
up  to  the  year  1794,  they  were  engaged  in  one  incessant  battle  with 
the  savages  of  the  West.  Trace  the  path  of  an  Indian  incursion 
anywhere  over  the  great  valley  of  the  West,  and  you  will  find  it  red 
with  Kentucky  blood.  Wander  over  any  of  the  battle-fields  of  that 
great  theater  of  savage  war,  and  you  will  find  it  white  with  the 
bones  of  her  children.  In  childhood  they  fought  the  Indians,  with 
their  sisters  and  mothers,  in  their  dwellings.  In  youth  and  ripe 
manhood  they  fought  them  in  ambuscades  and  open  battle-fields. 
Such  were  the  men  of  Kentucky  in  1811,  when  the  battle  of  Tippe- 
canoe  was  fought.  There,  too,  as  we  know,  they  were  still  found, 
foremost  where  life  was  to  be  lost  or  glory  won ;  and  there  they  were 
commanded  by  General  Harrison.  Now,  sir,  if  in  that  battle  General 
Harrison  had  not  conducted  as  became  a  soldier  and  a  general,  would 
not  such  men  have  seen  and  known  it?  Did  Kentucky  in  1811, 
mourning  as  she  then  did  the  loss  of  one  of  her  greatest  and  most 
valued  citizens,  condemn  (as  the  gentleman  from  Michigan  has 
attempted  to)  the  conduct  of  the  General  who  commanded  in  that 
battle?  Let  us  see  how  they  testified. 

In  January,  1812,  two  months  after  the  battle  of  Tippecanoe, 
the  Legislature  of  Kentucky  was  in  session.  On  the  7th  of  January, 
1812,  the  following  resolution  passed  that  body: 

"  Resolved,  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  State 
of  Kentucky,  That  in  the  late  campaign  against  the  Indians  upon  the 
Wabash,  Governor  William  Henry  Harrison  has  behaved  like  a  hero, 
a  patriot  and  a  general ;  and  that  for  his  cool,  deliberate,  skillful  and 
gallant  conduct  in  the  battle  of  Tippecanoe,  he  well  deserves  the 
warmest  thanks  of  his  country  and  his  nation." 

Mr.  Speaker,  the  resolution  I  have  just  read  was  presented  by 
John  J.  Crittenden,  now  a  Senator  from  the  State  of  Kentucky, 
whom  to  name  is  to  call  to  the  minds  of  all  who  know  him,  a  man 
whose  urbanity  and  varied  accomplishments  present  a  model  of  an 
American  gentleman — whose  wisdom,  eloquence  and  integrity  have 
won  for  him  the  first  rank  among  American  statesmen.  Such  a  man, 


REPLY  TO  GENERAL  CRARY.  257 

with  both  branches  of  the  Kentucky  Legislature,  has  testified,  two 
months  only  after  the  event  took  place,  that,  in  the  campaign  and 
battle  of  Tippecanoe,  General  Harrison  combined  the  skill  and  con 
duct  of  an  able  commander  with  the  valor  of  a  soldier  and  the  patri 
otism  of  an  American.  Who  rises  up,  twenty-eight  years  afterward, 
to  contradict  this?  The  young  gentleman  from  Michigan!  He  who, 
at  the  time  referred  to,  was  probably  conning  Webster's  spelling- 
book  in  some  village  school  in  Connecticut.  But,  Mr.  Speaker,  I 
must  call  another  witness  upon  the  point  in  issue  here.  On  the  12th 
of  November,  1811,  the  Territorial  Legislature  of  Indiana  was  in 
session.  This  is  just  five  days  after  the  battle.  That  Legislature, 
through  the  Speaker  of  its  House  of  Representatives,  General 
William  Johnson,  addressed  General  Harrison  in  the  following  terms : 

"Sir:  The  House  of  Representatives  of  the  Indiana  Territory, 
in  their  own  name,  and  in  behalf  of  their  constituents,  most  cordially 
reciprocate  the  congratulations  of  your  Excellency  on  the  glorious 
result  of  the  late  sanguinary  conflict  with  the  Shawnee  Prophet  and 
all  the  tribes  of  Indians  confederated  with  him.  When  we  see  dis 
played  in  behalf  of  our  country  not  only  the  consummate  abilities  of 
the  general,  but  the  heroism  of  the  man ;  and  when  we  take  into 
view  the  benefits  which  must  result  to  that  country  from  those  exer 
tions,  we  cannot  for  a  moment  withhold  our  meed  of  applause." 

Here,  sir,  we  have  two  Legislatures  of  the  States  whose  citizens 
composed  the  militia  force  at  Tippecanoe,  grieved  and  smarting 
under  the  loss  of'their  fellow-citizens,  uniting  in  solemn  council  in 
bearing  their  testimony  to  the  skill  and  bravery  displayed  by  General 
Harrison  in  that  battle,  which  the  gentleman  from  Michigan,  with  a 
self-complacency  that  might  well  pass  for  insanity,  now  says  Jie  has 
discovered  was  marked  by  palpable  incapacity  in  the  commanding 
General.  But,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  must  call  yet  another,  nay,  several 
other  witnesses,  to  confront  the  opinion  of  the  Michigan  General. 

In  August,  1812,  about  nine  months  after  the  battle  of  Tippe 
canoe,  news  of  fearful  import  concerning  the  conduct  of  General 
Hull  reached  Ohio  and  Kentucky.  Our  army  had  fallen  back  on 
Detroit,  and  rumors  of  the  surrender  of  that  place  to  the  British, 
which  did  actually  take  place,  were  floating  on  every  breeze.  Three 
regiments  of  militia  were  immediately  raised  in  Kentucky.  Before 
these  troops  had  taken  the  field,  it  was  well  known  that  our  army 
under  Hull,  with  the  whole  Territory  of  Michigan,  had  been  surren 
dered  to  the  combined  British  and  Indian  forces,  commanded  by 
18 


258  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

Brock  and  Tecumseh.  Our  whole  frontier  in  the  Northwest  lay  bare 
and  defenseless  to  the  invasion  not  only  of  the  British  army,  but  the 
more  terrible  incursion  of  a  savage  foe,  hungry  for  plunder  and 
thirsting  for  blood,  led  on  by  the  most  bold  and  accomplished  war 
rior  that  the  tribes  of  the  red  man  had  ever  produced.  In  this  state 
of  peril  the  gallant  army  of  Kentucky  looked  round  for  a  leader 
equal  to  the  imminent  and  momentous  crisis.  There  was  Scjitt^  the 
then  Governor  of  Kentucky,  who  had  fought  through  the  Revolu 
tionary  war,  and  under  "the  eye  of  Washington  had  risen  to  the  rank 
of  brigadier  in  the  regular  service.  There,  too,  was  the  veteran 
Shelby,  one  of  the  heroes  of  King's  Mountain,  a  name  that  shall 
wake  up  the  tones  of  enthusiasm  in  every  American  heart  while 
heroic  courage  is  esteemed,  or  lofty  integrity  remains  a  virtue. 
There,  too,  was  Clay,  whose  trumpet  tongue  in  this  hall  was  worth  a 
thousand  cannon  in  the  field.  These  were  convened  in  council. 
This,  let  us  not  forget,  was  about  nine  months  after  the  battle  of 
Tippecanoe.  Whom,  sir,  I  ask,  did  these  men  select. to  lead  their 
own  friends  and  fellow-citizens  on  to  this  glorious  enterprise  ?  Their 
laws  required  that  their  militia  should  be  commanded  by  one  of  their 
own  citizens ;  yet  passing  by  Scott  and  Shelby  and  thousands  of  their 
own  brave  sons,  this  council  called  General  Harrison,  then  Governor 
of  Indiana, — he  who  had  commanded  Kentuckians  but  nine  months 
before  at  Tippecanoe — he  who,  according  to  the  gentleman  from 
Michigan,  had  shown  no  trait  but  imbecility,  as  an  officer — he, 
against  the  laws  of  Kentucky,  was  by  such  a  council  asked  to  resign 
his  station  as  Governor  of  Indiana,  and  take  the  rank  and  commis 
sion  of  Major-General  in  the  Kentucky  militia,  and  lead  on  her 
armies  in  that  fearful  hour,  to  redeem  our  national  disgrace  and 
snatch  from  British  domination  and  savage  butchery  the  very  coun 
try  now  represented  by  the  gentleman  from  Michigan.  I  have  yet 
one.,  other  witness  to  call  against  the  gentleman  from  Michigan.  Sir, 
if  the  last  rest  of  the  illustrious  dead  is  disturbed  in  this  unnatural 
war  upon  a  living  soldier's  honor,  and  a  living  patriot's  fame,  the 
fault  is  not  mine.  It  will  appear  presently  that  the  gentleman  from 
Michigan  has — unwittingly,  it  may  be — dishonored  and  insulted  the 
dead,  and  charged  the  pure  and  venerated  Madison  with  hypocrisy 
and  falsehood.  If  General  Harrison  had  been  the  weak,  wicked  or 
imbecile  thing  the  gentleman  from  Michigan  would  now  pretend, 
was  not  this  known  to  Mr.  Madison,  then  President  of  the  United 
States,  who  gave  the  orders  under  which  General  Harrison  acted, 


REPLY  TO  GENERAL  CRARY.  259 

and  to  whom  the  latter  was  responsible  for  his  conduct  ?  Surely  no 
one  can  suppose  that  there  were  wanting  those  who,  if  they  could 
have  done  so  with  truth,  would  have  made  known  any  conduct  of 
General  Harrison  at  the  time  referred  to,  which  seemed  in  any  degree 
worthy  of  reprehension.  With  all  these  means  of  information  what 
was  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Madison  respecting  tfrie  hattip  r>f  i  ipp^a- 
noe_?__I  will  quote  his  own  words  from  his  own  message  to  Congress 
about  a  month  after  the  event.  The  message  is  dated  18th  Decem 
ber,  1811,  and  reads  as  follows: 

"  While  it  is  deeply  lamented  that  so  many  valuable  lives  have 
been  lost  in  the  action  which  took  place  on  the  7th  ultimo,  Congress 
will  see  with  satisfaction  the  dauntless  spirit  of  fortitude  victoriously 
displayed  by  every  description  of  troops  engaged,  as  well  as  the  col 
lected  firmness  which  distinguished  their  commander  on  an  occasion 
requiring  the  utmost  exertions  of  valor  and  discipline." 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  have  no  pleasure  in  thus  recapitulating  and  pil 
ing  proof  upon  proof  to  repel  an  insinuation,  which  I  think  is  now 
apparent  to  all  has  been  thrown  out  in  the  madness  of  party  rage, 
without  consideration,  and  founded  only  on  a  total  perversion,  or 
rather  flat  contradiction,  of  every  historical  record  having  relation  to 
the  subject. 

Something  was  said  by  the  gentleman  from  Michigan  about  the 
encampment  at  Tippecanoe.  If  I  understood  him  rightly,  he  con 
demned  it  as  injudicious,  because  it  had  a  river  on  one  side  and  a 
morass  on  another.  Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  shall  give  no  opinion  on 
the  question  thus  stated;  but  it  just  now  occurs  to  me  that  this  very 
subject,  which  I  think  in  the  military  vocabulary  is  called  castrameta- 
tion,  admits  of  some  serious  injury  bearing  upon  the  criticism  under 
consideration.  In  almost  all  scientific  research,  we  find  that  what  is 
now  reduced  to  system,  and  arises  to  the  dignity  of  science,  was  at 
first  the  product  of  some  casuality,  which,  falling  under  the  notice 
of  some  reflecting  mind,  gave  rise  to  surprising  results.  The  acci 
dental  falling  of  an  apple  developed  the  great  law  of  gravitation.  I 
am  sure  I  have  somewhere  seen  it  stated  that  Pyrrhus,  the  celebrated 
King  of  Epirus,  who  is  allowed  by  all  authority  to  have  been  the 
first  general  of  his  time,  first  learned  to  fortify  his  camp  by  having  a 
river  in  his  rear  and  a  morass  on  his  flank ;  and  this  was  first  sug 
gested  to  him  by  seeing  a  wild  boar,  when  hunted  to  desperation, 
back  himself  against  a  tree  or  rock,  that  he  might  fight  his  pursuers, 
without  danger  of  being  assailed  in  his  rear.  Now,  sir,  if  I  compre- 


260  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

hend  the  gentleman  from  Michigan,  he  has  against  him  on  this  point 
not  only  the  celebrated  king  of  Epirus,  but  also  the  wild  boar,  who, 
it  seems,  was  the  tutor  of  Pyrrhus  in  the  art  of  castrametation. 
Here,  then,  are  two  approved  authorities,  one  of  whom  nature 
taught  the  art  of  war,  as  she  kindly  did  us  colonels,  and  the  other 
that  renowned  hero  of  Epirus,  who'  gave  the  Romans  so  much 
trouble  in  his  time.  These  authorities  are  near  two  thousand  years 
old,  and,  as  far  as  I  know,  unquestioned,  till  the  gentleman  from 
Michigan  attacked  them  yesterday.  Here,  again,  I  ask  who  shall 
decide?  Pyrrhus  and  the  boar  on  one  side,  and  the  gentleman  from 
Michigan  on  the  other.  Sir,  I  decline  jurisdiction  of  the  question, 
and  leave  the  two  hundred  and  forty  colonels  of  this  House  to  settle 
the  contest,  "non  nostrum  tantes  componerc  Ktes." 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  feel  it  quite  impossible  to  withdraw  from  this 
part  of  the  debate,  without  some  comment  on  another  assertion,  or 
rather  intimation,  of  the  gentleman  from  Michigan,  touching  the 
conduct  of  General  Harrison  at  the  battle  of  the  Thames.  All  who 
have  made  themselves  acquainted  with  the  history  of  that  event, 
know  that  the  order,  which  the  American  army  was  to  attack  the 
combined  force  of  British  and  Indians  at  the  Thames,  was  changed 
at  the  very  moment  when  the  onset  was  about  to  be  made.  This 
order  of  the  General  drew  forth  from  Commodore  Perry  and  others, 
who  were  in  the  staff  of  the  army  and  on  the  ground  at  the  time, 
the  highest  encomiums.  The  idea  of  this  change  in  the  plan  of 
attack,  it  is  now  intimated,  was  not  original  with  General  Harrison, 
but  was,  as  the  gentleman  seems  to  intimate,  suggested  to  him  by 
another,  who,  it  is  said,  was  on  the  ground  at  the  time.  Who  that 
other  person  is,  or  was,  the  gentleman  has  not  said,  but  seemed  to 
intimate  he  was  now  in  the  other  end  of  the  Capitol,  and  thus  we 
are  led  to  suppose  that  the  gentleman  intends  to  say  that  Colonel 
Johnson,  the  Vice-President,  is  the  gentleman  alluded  to.  J3ir,  I 
regret  very  much  that  the  gentleman  should  treat  historical  facts  in 
this  way.  If  there  be  any  foundation  for  giving  Colonel  Johnson 
the  honor  of  having  suggested  to  General  Harrison  a  movement  for 
which  the  latter  has  received  great  praise,  why  not  speak  out  and 
say  so?  Why  insinuate?  Why  hint  or  suppose  on  a  subject  sus 
ceptible  of  easy  and  positive  proof?  Does  not  the  gentleman  know 
that  he  is  thus  trifling  with  the  character  of  a  soldier,  playing  with 
reputation  dearer  than  property  or  life  to  its  possessor?  Sir,  I  wish 
to  know  if  Colonel  Johnson,  the  Vice-President  of  the  United  States, 


REPLY  TO  GENERAL  CRARY.  261 

has,  by  any  word  or  act  of  his,  given  countenance  to  this  insinua 
tion  ?  It  would  be  well  for  all  who  speak  at  random  on  this  subject 
to  remember  that  there  are  living  witnesses  yet  who  can  testify  to 
the  point  in  question.  It  .may  not  be  amiss  to  remind^aoine  that 
thete-is_£xtant  a  journal  of  Colonel  Wood,  who  afterward  fell  on  the 
Niagara  frontier.  For  the  benefit  of  such,  I,  too,  will  state  what 
can  be  proved  in  relation  to  the  change  made  by  General  Harrison 
in  the  order  of  attack  at  the  Thames. 

The  position  of  the  British  and  Indians  had  been  reported  to 
General  Harrison  by  volunteer  officers — brave  men,  it  is  true,  but 
who,  like  many  of  us,  were  officers  who  had  not  seen  a  great  deal  of 
hard  fighting.  On  this  report  the  order  of  attack  first  intended  was 
founded,  but,  before  the  troops  were  ordered  on  the  attack,  Colonel 
Wood  was  sent  to  examine  and  report  the  extent  of  front  occupied 
by  the  British  troops.  Colonel  Wood's  military  eye  detected  at 
once  what  had  escaped  the  unpracticed  observation  of  the  others — 
that  is,  that  the  British  regulars  were  drawn  up  in  open  order — and 
it  was  on  his  report  that,  at  the  moment,  the  change  was  made  by 
General  Harrison  in  the  order  of  the  attack — a  movement  which,  in 
the  estimation  of  such  men  as  Wood,  and  Perry,  and  Shelby,  was 
enough  of  itself  to  entitle  General  Harrison  to  the  highest  rank 
among  the  military  men  of  the  age. 

Mr.  Speaker,  when  I  review  the  historical  testimony  touching 
this  portion  of  General  Harrison's  history,  I  confess  my  amazement 
at  the^Quixotjc^  (I  pray  my  friend  from  Michigan  to  pardon  me),  i 
but  I  must  call  it  the  jQuixotic  exhibition  which  he  has  made  of  him-/' 
self.  Sir,  the  gentleman  had  no  need  to  tell  us  he  was  a  general  of" 
militia.  His  conduct  in  this  discussion  is  proof  of  that — strong  even 
as  is  his  own  word  for  the  fact.  He  has  shown  all  that  reckless  brav 
ery  which  has  always  characterized  our  noble  militia,  but  he  has  also, 
in  this  attack,  shown  that  other  quality  of  militia  troops,  which  so 
frequently  impels  them  to  rush  blindly  forward,  and  often  to  their 
own  destruction.  I  should  like  to  hear  many  of  the  brave  men 
around  me  speak  of  General  Harrison.  Some  there  are  now  under 
my  eye  who  carry  British  bullets  in  their  bodies,  received  while  fight 
ing  under  the  command  of  General  Harrison.  I  should  be  glad  to 
hear  my  whole-souled  and  generous-hearted  friend  from  Kentucky 
[MAJOR  BUTLER],  who  agrees  with  the  gentleman  from  Michigan  in 
general  politics,  who  has  not  merely  heard  of  battle,  but  who  has 
mingled  in  war  in  all  its  forms,  and  fought  his  way  from  the  ranks 


262  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

up  to  the  head  of  a  battalion — I  say  I  should  be  glad  to  hear  his 
opinions  of  the  matters  asserted,  hinted  at  and  insinuated  by  the 
gentleman  from  Michigan. 

Why,  I  ask,  is  this  attempt  to  falsify  the  common  history  of 
our  country  made  now,  and  why  is  it  made  here?  Is  it  vainly  imag 
ined  that  Congressional  speeches  are  to  contradict  accredited,  long- 
known  historical  facts?  Does  the  fierce  madness  of  party  indulge  a 
conception  so  wild? 

Sir,  I  repeat  that  I  feel  only  amazement  at  such  an  attempt.  I 
could  not  sit  still  and  witness  it  in  silence.  Much  as  I  desired  to 
speak  to  the  House  and  the  country  on  the  question  touching  the 
Cumberland  road,  I  should  have  left  it  to  others  had  I  not  been 
impelled  to  get  the  floor  to  bear  my  testimony  against  the  gross 
injustice  which  I  thought  was  about  to  be  done  to  a  citizen — an  hon 
ored,  cherished  citizen  of  my  own  State.  This  House,  Mr.  Speaker, 
knows  that  I  am  not  given  to  much  babbling  here.  Yes,  sir,  you  all 
know  that,  like  Balaam's  ass,  I  never  speak  here  till  I  am  kicked  into 
it.  I  may  claim  credit,  therefore,  for  sincerity,  when  I  declare  that 
a  strong  sense  of  justice  alone  could  have  called  me  into  this  debate. 
Let  me  now  remind  gentlemen,  who  may  be  tempted  into  a  similar 
course  with  my  friend  from  Michigan,  that  all  such  efforts  must 
recoil  with  destructive  effect  upon  those  who  make  them.  Sir,  it  has 
been  the  fortune  of  General  Harrison  to  be  identified  with  the  civil 
and  military  history  of  this  country  for  nearly  half  a  century.  What 
is  to  be  gained,  even  to  party,  by  perverting  that  history?  Nothing. 
You  may  blot  out  a  page  of  his  biography  here,  and  tear  out  a  chap 
ter  of  history  there ;  nay,  you  may,  in  the  blindness  of  party  rage, 
;  rival  the  Vandal  and  the  Turk,  and  burn  up  all  your  books,  and 
what  then  have  you  effected?  Nothing  but  an  insane  exhibition  of 
impotent  party  violence.  General  Harrison's  history  would  still 
remain  in  the  memory  of  his  and  your  cotemporaries ;  and  coming 
events,  not  long  to  be  delayed,  will  show  to  the  world  that  his  his 
tory,  in  both  legislation  and  war,  dwells  not  merely  in  the  memories 
of  his  countrymen,  but  is  enshrined  in  their  gratitude  and  engraven 
upon  their  hearts. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  come  now  to  the  discussion  of  what  is  really  the 
question  before  the  House,  and  with  the  hope  that  I  may  be  entitled 
to  the  floor  on  Monday,  I  will,  if  it  be  the  pleasure  of  the  House, 
give  way  for  a  motion  to  adjourn.  If  I  can  obtain  the  floor  on 
Monday,  I  promise  the  House  that  nothing  shall  tempt  me  to  wau- 


REPLY  TO  GENERAL  CRARY.  263 

der  from  the  question  touching  the  appropriation  for  the  Cumberland 
road,  a  work  which,  if  it  be  not  crushed  by  the  wretched  policy  of 
the  Administration,  will  reflect  as  much  glory  upon  your  civil  his 
tory  as  the  deeds  of  the  great  and  patriotic  citizen  whose  conduct  I 
have  been  compelled  to  notice,  ever  did  upon  your  military  annals. 

At  this  point  the  House  adjourned  until  the  following  Monday,  when  MR.  COR- 
WIN  resumed,  but  his  remarks  were  never  fully  reported. 


ON  THE  ARMY  BILL— BOUNTY  LANDS  TO  SOLDIERS. 


PENDING  the  discussion  of  the  bill  for  the  Increase  of  the  Army,  in  the  U.  S.  Sen 
ate,  January  I4th,  1847,  MR.  CAMERON,  of  Pennsylvania,  submitted  an  additional  sec 
tion,  enacting — "That  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  be  directed  to  issue  a  warrant  for 
a  half  section  of  land  to  every  officer,  non-commissioned  officer,  musician  and  private, 
who  shall  serve  in  the  Army  of  the  United  States  during  the  present  war  with  Mexico, 
or  shall  volunteer  and  enlist  to  serve  during  the  war,  and  shall  be  honorably  discharged 
before  its  termination ;  the  said  land  warrants  to  be  located  upon  any  land  belonging  to 
the  United  States  that  may  be  subject  to  private  entry." 

This  section  was,  in  substance,  generally  approved,  but  objected  to  by  influential 
Senators,  as  tending  to  retard  the  passage  of  the  Army  bill,  or  that  it  was,  as  they 
alleged,  imperfect  in  its  provisions. 

Mr.  Corwin  said  he  felt  somewhat  solicitous  that  this  measure, 
in  some  form  or  other,  and  at  some  time  or  other,  should  be  passed 
into  a  law,  and  he  thought,  if  gentlemen  would  give  it  some  atten 
tion,  they  would  find  it  not  so  very  imperfect ;  they  would  find  that 
it. .steered  clear  entirely  of  all  those  formidable  objections,  in  regard 
to  the  system  of  bounty  lands,  as  developed  in  practice  heretofore. 
The  reason  why  those  particular  sections  of  country  where  those 
bounty  lands  were  to  be  located  had  been  overlooked,  could  not  pos 
sibly  apply  to  the  lands  now  proposed  to  be  granted  by  the  Senator 
from  Pennsylvania.  The  lands  in  those  particular  instances,  and  in 
all  the  laws,  he  believed,  which  were  passed  for  the  enlistment  of 
soldiers  in  the  war  of  1812,  were  to  be  located  in  a  particular  place; 
the  result  was,  that  no  one  who  did  not  choose  to  make  that  place 
his  residence,  would  purchase  them.  The  prices  sank,  therefore,  to 
about  twenty  dollars  for  each  grant.  This  arose  from  the  system  of 
location  adopted  by  the  Government.  But  this  was  not  the  case 
here.  These  were  to  be  located  in  any  place  where  there  were  lands 
subject  to  private  entry,  and  that  would  comprehend  a  district  large 
enough  to  furnish  a  wide  range  for  choice.  The  result  of  the  pas 
sage  of  this  amendment,  then,  would  be  simply  this :  that  every  sol 
dier  who  should  be  honorably  discharged,  or  having  served  during 

the  war,  or  volunteered  for  twelve  months,  would,  at  the  end  of  his 

(264) 


BOUNTY    LANDS    TO    SOLDIERS.  265 

term  of  service,  be  entitled  to  so  much  scrip  as  would  purchase  one 
hundred  and  sixty  acres  of  land.*  It  was  a  proposition  to  grant  to 
every  soldier  who  actually  served,  and  to  the  heirs  of  every  soldier 
who  died  in  service,  an  amount  equal  to  $200,  which  should  pass 
current  in  any  land  office  for  the  purchase  of  land,  instead  of  paying 
them  in  advance ;  it  was  paying  him,  at  the  end  of  his  service,  this 
amount.  He  himself  would  have  no  hesitation  in  voting  for  such  a 
proposition.  A  soldier's  service  was  the  hardest  that  any  patriot 
could  be  called  upon  to  perform,  and  he  thought  that  they  were 
entitled  to  receive  at  the  hands  of  the  Government  this  much  at 
least.  He  did  not  like  procrastinating  this  subject  until  this  bill 
should  be  passed.  He  saw  no  objection  to  its  being  incorporated  in 
it.  Would  the  passage  of  that  bill  alone  bring  the  men  into  the 
field  ?  The  army  was  not  half  full ;  would  that  supply  the  deficiency  ? 
Why,  if  the  thing  were  suggested  in  any  other  place,  it  would  be 
called  a  palpable  absurdity !  If  this  bill  were  to  pass,  to  what  family 
of  legislation  would  it  belong?  It  was  the  very  bill  to  which  such  a 
provision  as  that  proposed  by  the  Senator  from  Pennsylvania  prop 
erly  belonged. 

On  the  igth  January,  MR.  BENTON  reported  from  the  Senate  Committee  on  Mili 
tary  Affairs,  to  which  the  bill  had  been  recommitted,  with  instructions  to  bring  in  an 
amendment  granting  Bounty  Lands,  and  which,  having  been  lost  by  a  tie  vote  after 
some  discussion,  MR.  CORWIN  offered  the  following  substitute: 

"That  each  non-commissioned  officer  or  private  enlisted  in  the  regular  army,  of 
regularly  mustered  in  any  volunteer  company,  who  has  served,  or  may  serve  during  the 
present  war  with  Mexico,  and  who  shall  at  the  end  of  his  term  of  service,  receive  an 
honorable  discharge,  shall  be  entitled  to  receive  a  certificate  or  warrant  from  the  War 
Department  for  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres  of  land,  which  may  be  located  by  the  war 
rantee,  his  heirs  or  legal  representatives,  at  any  land  office  in  the  United  States,  in  one 
body,  in  conformity  to  the  legal  subdivisions  of  the  public  lands,  in  such  districts  as  are 
then  subject  to  private  entry;  Provided,  That  if  the  full  term  for  which  such  person 
shall  have  volunteered  shall  not  exceed  one  year,  then  the  warrant  to  be  for  eighty 
acres.  In  case  of  death  in  service,  or  after  his  discharge,  then  the  certificate  to  go- 
first,  to  the  widow ;  second,  to  the  children ;  third,  his  father ;  fourth,  his  mother ;  and 
fifth,  his  brothers  and  sisters." 

Mr.  Corwin  said  he  merely  desired  to  say  to  the  Senate  what 
was  the  difference  between  his  substitute  and  the  report  of  the  com 
mittee.  The  object  which  already  had  been  urged  from  various 
quarters  of  the  Senate,  to  grant  lands  to  the  soldiers,  he  should  say 
nothing  about,  because  he  conceived  that  the  mind  of  every  Senator 
was  made  up  on  that  subject.  His  principal  objection  to  the  bill 

*  Mr.  Cameron's  proposition  had  been  modified  when  these  remarks  were  made. 


266  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

which  had  been  reported  from  the  Military  Committee  was,  the 
restraints  which  it  imposes  on  alienations  of  the  land  after  it  had 
been  acquired  by  the  soldier ;  and  he  took  that  exception  to  it,  in 
view  of  the  principle  upon  which  he  supposed  the  Senate  was  acting 
in  granting  these  donations  at  all.  It  was  intended,  as  had  been  well 
observed  by  the  Senator  from  Massachusetts  [MR.  WEBSTER],  to 
operate  as  an  inducement  to  those  whom  we  now  solicit  to  enter  the 
military  service  of  the  country.  Now,  he  thought,  a  very  little 
reflection  on  the  character  and  pursuits  of  those  who  were  likely  to 
enter  the  volunteer  or  regular  service,  would  satisfy  any  man  that 
the  grant  of  a  quarter  section  of  land  to  be  received  by  them  at  the 
end  of  their  term  of  service,  and  to  be  inalienable  by  them,  and, 
consequently,  useless  to  them  for  the  term  of  seven  years,  was  not 
an  inducement  equivalent  to  that  offered  by  the  amendment  which 
he  had  proposed.  He  would  not  pretend  to  be  very  accurate  in  the 
construction  he  had  been  able  to  put  on  the  words  employed  in 
order  to  impose  these  restraints  on  alienation,  but  he  thought  he  was 
not  mistaken  in  this,  that  when  the  certificate  for  a  quarter  section  of 
land  shall  be  issued,  it  does  not  endow  the  holder  of  it  with  a  right 
to  dispose  of  it  until  the  end  of  seven  years,  when  a  patent  will  be 
issued;  and  it  prohibits  him  from  making  any  use  of  it  whatever, 
either  by  lien,  collection  of  money  by  agreement  for  the  occupation 
of  the  land,  or  any  means  whatever.  In  short,  it  was  perfectly  use 
less  to  him  for  seven  years  after  his  term  of  service,  and  also  during 
that  time,  if  he  had  not  misunderstood  the  bill,  the  land  was  subject 
to  taxation.  No  bond  could  be  made,  no  agreement  entered  into  by 
him  for  leasing  it,  or  for  the  occupation  of  it  in  any  way.  It  was 
simply  saying  to  him  that  he  should,  within  seven  years  from  the 
expiration  of  his  term  of  service,  have  a  quarter  section  of  land, 
and  in  the  meantime  he  should  pay  taxes  on  it,  without  his  being 
able  to  make  any  conceivable  use  of  it,  except  he  would  go  and 
reside  upon  it  himself;  for  if  he  made  any  agreement,  in  any  way, 
to  remunerate  him  for  the  taxes  which  he  might  pay  on  that  land,  it 
could  not  be  enforced. 

Now,  he  presumed,  no  one  would  pretend  to  deny  that  a  very 
considerable  proportion  of  those  who  were  likely  to  enter  the  service, 
either  as  volunteers  or  as  regular  soldiers,  would  be  found  to  belong 
to  some  of  the  trades  or  mechanical  pursuits  which  were  common  to 
the  men  of  this  country.  He  thought  he  was  not  mistaken  when  he 
said  one  entire  company  raised  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts,  con- 


BOUNTY    LANDS    TO    SOLDIERS.  267 

sisted  altogether  of  mechanics — printers,  tailors,  shoemakers  and 
hatters.  Now,  what  inducement  did  they  propose  to  a  man  accus 
tomed  all  his  lifetime  to  work  in  mechanical  pursuits,  when  they 
offered  him  a  certificate  for  a  quarter  section  of  land,  on  which  he 
would  have  to  pay  taxes  for  seven  years,  which  he  must  then  make 
available  to  him,  and  not  before  ?  Did  they  expect  a  shoemaker  to 
go  into  the  Western  forests  with  the  chopping-ax,  or  any  of  the 
other  trades  to  engage  in  pursuits  so  uncongenial  with  those  to  which 
they  had  been  accustomed?  But  according  to  this  bill  no  man  could 
do  it  for  him,  for  every  agreement  made  for  lien  or  transfer  was  void. 
All  these  classes  of  society,  then,  would  have  no  inducements  at  all ; 
for,  as  the  distinguished  Senator  from  Missouri  has  said,  it  would 
make  twenty  thousand  men,  after  making  war  on  the  Mexicans, 
march  into  the  far  West  and  make  war  on  the  forests.  It  was  com 
pulsory  on  them  to  do  so,  under  the  penalty  of  twenty  thousand 
quarter  sections  of  land. 

Now,  Mr.  C. 's  object  was  to  make  the  land  alienable,  and  thus 
'hold  out  a  proper  and  adequate  inducement.  He  knew  very  well 
that  the  Senator  from  Missouri  had  this  object  perhaps  much  more  at 
heart  than  he  (Mr.  C.)  had.  They  all  aimed  at  the  same  thing. 
His  amendment  proposed  to  give  a  quarter  section  of  land,  or  a  war 
rant  which  would  be  worth  that,  to  all  who  served  for  twelve  months, 
at  the  expiration  of  his  term  of  service.  It  might  be  located  any 
where.  It  was  so  much  scrip  which  was  receivable  in  payment  for 
public  lands.  That  quarter  section,  instead  of  being  taken  up  in 
tracts  of  forty  or  fifty  acres  each,  by  his  amendment  was  proposed 
to  be  one  tract ;  and  to  those  who  had  not  served  twelve  months,  to 
meet  the  views  of  the  Senator  from  Missouri,  he  gave  eighty  acres 
of  land,  or  a  warrant  for  that  quantity,  which  would  be  land  scrip 
equal  to  one  hundred  dollars,  estimating  the  land  at  the  present  rate 
of  $1.25  per  acre.  This,  then,  would  operate  exactly  as  so  much 
money  paid  into  the  hands  of  the  soldiers,  or  agreed  to  be  paid. 

Mr.  C.  appealed,  as  the  Senator  from  Massachusetts  had  done, 
to  their  experience  in  the  war  of  1812.  He  thought  it  would  be 
found,  on  a  recurrence  to  the  statute,  that  during  that  time  three 
hundred  and  twenty  acres  were  received  at  one  time ;  but  even  three 
hundred  and  twenty  acres  of  bounty  land  were  found  not  to  produce 
the  desired  result,  and  a  bounty  in  money  was  found  to  be  better, 
for  that  alone  succeeded  in  filling  up  the  ranks.  If,  then,  their 
experience  was  worth  anything,  the  proposition  to  give  land  to  the 


.268  SPEECHES    OP   THOMAS    COE.WIN. 

extent  proposed  by  the  committee  would  be  found  to  be  insufficient. 
But  by  converting  it  into  money,  or  the  equivalent  of  money,  and 
making  it  inalienable  or  untransferable  until  his  term  of  service 
expires,  the  soldier  would  get  what  they  proposed  he  should  realize, 
and  they  would  attain  the  great  object  desired  by  all. 

After  further  discussion,  MR.  BENTON  inquired  of  Mr.  C.,  What  is  the  meaning  of 
"legal  representatives?" 

Mr.  Corwin  said  it  was  a  great  while  since  he  had  been  exam 
ined  for  admission  to  the  bar,  when  such  a  question  might  have  been 
proper.  If  the  Senator  from  Missouri  made  the  inquiry  for  his  own 
information,  he  (Mr.  C.)  would  rather  refer  him  to  the  library.  But 
if  he  simply  inquired  what  my  opinion  is  of  the  meaning  of  the 
phrase  "legal  representatives,"  I  will  say  to  him  that  I  mean  those 
persons  who  represent  the  estate  of  a  dead  man  after  he  is  dead. 

Incidental  remarks  were  here  made  by  Senators,  when  MR.  CORWIN  continued. 

He  felt,  when  he  offered  this  amendment,  the  full  force  of  the 
suggestions  which  had  just  been  made  by  the  Senator  from  Missouri, 
and  he  would  add  that  it  had  never  been  subject  to  the  action  of  the 
Senate,  though  he  knew  that  its  general  principle  had  been  before 
the  committee,  and  must  necessarily  have  been  discussed  by  them. 

Mr.  C.  wished  now  to  modify  his  amendment  by  striking  out 
those  words  which  were  objectionable  to  the  Senator  from  Maryland 
[MR.  R.  JOHNSON].  When  he  drew  up  this  paper  he  thought  this 
bounty  of  the  Government  ought  to  be  confined  to  those  who  shall 
perform  service  in  this  Mexican  war.  He  would,  however,  now 
modify  his  amendment,  as  had  been  suggested,  leaving  the  bounty 
to  apply  to  all  who  enter  the  service  and  perform  duty  during  the 
Mexican  war. 

January  aoth,  1847, — same  subject. 

Mr.  Corwin  replied  (to  Senators)  that  the  bill  was  intended  to 
meet  every  case.  The  gentleman  would  see  that  all  who  were  hon 
orably  discharged  were  provided  for,  if  they  had  been  in  the  service 
for  three  months. 

He  desired  (after  remarks  by  Senators  Chalmers  and  Bagly)  to 
explain  a  difficulty  which  had  been  suggested  by  the  Senator  from 
Indiana  [MR.  HANNEGAN],  and  which  had  presented  itself  to  his  own 
mind.  In  granting  bounties  he  admitted  that  some  respect  should 
be  paid  to  the  length  of  service,  so  that  it  should  not  appear  to  be  a 
mere  gratuity  to  the  troops,  but  that  the  bounty  should  bear  some 


BOUNTY    LANDS   TO    SOLDIERS.  269 

relation  to  the  service  rendered.  In  the  further  prosecution  of  the 
war,  it  was  not  likely  that  any  troops  would  be  raised,  whether  regu 
lar  soldiers  or  volunteers,  but  for  longer  periods  of  service — the  for 
mer  for  five  years,  and  the  latter  during  the  war.  As  the  principal 
object  of  this  bill  was  therefore  prospective,  and  the  design  to 
recruit  the  army  speedily,  it  did  appear  to  him  that  there  should  not 
be  a  greater  bounty  given  to  those  who  enter  during  the  war  now 
pending,  than  to  those  who  went  into  it  without  any  other  motive 
than  the  laws  furnished  at  the  time  they  entered  into  the  service. 
Now,  he  supposed,  that  every  one  who  was  acquainted  with  the  gen 
erosity  of  the  Senator  from  Indiana  [MR.  HANNEGAN],  knew  that  if 
he  could  do  it  from  his  own  private  purse,  he  would  be  willing  to 
bestow  on  the  soldier  any  gratuity  that  might  be  necessary;  but 
when  they  were  disposing  of  the  money  in  the  public  treasury,  it 
appeared  to  him  that  they  should  be  careful  to  give  only  in  cases 
where  it  was  necessary  to  make  some  compensation  to  those  who 
were  to  receive  it.  And  in  making  compensation,  they  must  also 
make  a  discrimination  between  those  who  have  served  but  a  limited 
time,  and  those  whose  service  has  been  longer. 

Again,  there  was  some  misunderstanding  on  another  point. 
Now,  he  contended  that  his  amendment  did,  in  fact  and  in  substance, 
give  to  a  soldier  receiving  a  land-warrant  a  money-warrant — dollars 
and  cents — restricting  it  to  this,  that  it  was  only  receivable  in  pay 
ment  of  public  land.  It  was  land-scrip  as  much  as  was  that  which 
the  Senator  from  Texas  proposed. 

January  29,  1847,  after  a  speech  in  opposition  from  MR.  BENTON,  on  the  same 
subject,  in  which  he  contended  that  it  would  "  expunge  the  land  of  revenue  for  half  a 
dozen  years ;"  that  "  all  the  John  Smiths,  John  Joneses,  Billy  Williamses — all  the 
Blacks,  Browns,  Greys,  Reds,  Whites — all  the  Longs  and  Shorts — all  the  Youngs  and 
Olds — all  that  interminable  nomenclature  of  common  names — will  become  breeders  of 
warrants" — MR.  CORWIN  again  spoke  as  follows: 

He  felt  as  much  regret  as  it  was  possible  for  the  Senator  from 
Missouri  to  feel,  at  the  delay  which  has  occurred  under  the  present 
exigencies  in  the  passage  of  this  army  bill — a  delay  occasioned  by 
the  various  propositions  to  amend  which  had  been  presented  by  the 
Senator  from  Missouri  himself,  and  other  Senators ;  and  he  regretted, 
also,  that  it  was  to  be  still  further  delayed  by  what  the  honorable 
Senator  from  Missouri  himself  had  very  happily  denominated  "an 
obstinate  and  persevering  opposition  "  to  the  amendment  now  under 
consideration,  which,  it  would  be  recollected,  had  once  passed  by  a 
majority  which  he  believed  had  not  been  accorded  to  any  other  fea- 


270  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

ture  of  the  bill.  He  had  to  regret,  for  one,  that  it  was  not  in  his 
power,  not  being  consistent  with  his  sense  of  duty,  to  accede  to  the 
request  made  by  the  honorable  Senator  from  Missouri  yesterday ;  and 
he  was  sure  that  honorable  Senator  was  not  inclined  at  all  to  deny 
to  him,  or  to  any  other  Senator  upon  that  floor,  the  same  right  to 
form  an  opinion  upon  this  important  subject  as  he  claimed  for  him 
self.  As  it  was  sincerely  not  his  wish  to  procrastinate  a  vote  which 
it  was  desirable  should  be  speedily  taken  upon  this  bill,  he  desired 
merely  to  occupy  a  few  moments  in  replying  to  what  had  been  said 
by  the  honorable  Senator  from  Missouri.  And  first,  he  would  pre 
mise  that  although  everything  which  had  been  presented  to  them  this 
morning  by  the  Senator  from  Missouri,  and  everything  that  might  be 
legitimately  urged  in  reply  to  the  arguments  of  the  Senator  from 
Missouri,  had  already  been  very  fully  presented,  and  he  doubted  not 
very  fully  considered  by  every  Senator  upon  that  floor ;  yet,  having 
been  the  means  (by  what  might  almost  be  termed  an  accident,  it  was 
true,)  of  presenting  this  amendment,  and  having  heard  the  terms  in 
which  it  had  been  denounced,  he  supposed  that  it  would  be  deemed 
proper  for  him  to  occupy  a  few  moments  with  some  observations 
before  taking  the  final  vote  upon  the  question  now  to  be  determined. 
There  had  been  some  things  revealed  in  this  incidental  discussion  in 
reference  to  the  war,  and  to  the  troops  which  had  been  so  freely  and 
fully  spoken  of,  and  in  very  laudatory  terms,  on  all  sides  of  the 
chamber,  which  it  was  very  difficult  to  reconcile  with  what  was 
understood  to  be  the  opinion  of  gentlemen  on  all  sides. 

The  arguments  of  the  Senator  from  Missouri,  as  he  understood 
them,  rested  upon  two  grounds  exclusively.  The  Senator  con 
tended,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  bounty  land  offered  to  the  soldier 
was  not  necessary  to  procure  the  services  of  the  soldier.  This  was 
as  clearly  an  objection  to  any  bill  that  could  be  presented  on  this 
subject  as  it  was  to  this.  The  Senator  contended,  and  presented  it 
to  them  as  an  argument  against  the  passage  of  this  amendment,  that 
it  was  now  a  matter  of  contention  between  the  patriotic  citizens  of 
this  country,  who  wished  to  serve  in  this  extraordinary  war,  as  to 
who  among  them  should  be  accepted,  without  any  reference  what 
ever  to  this  bounty.  If  this  was  so,  and  if  there  was  no  justice  in 
voting  the  bounty,  or  necessity  for  voting  it,  then  let  the  vote  be 
taken  upon  the  question  without  any  further  controversy. 

If  the  Senator  from  Missouri  meant  to  say  that  men  could  be 
enlisted  into  the  service  for  their  monthly  pay  alone ;  if  he  meant  to 


BOUNTY    LANDS    TO    SOLDIERS.  271 

declare — and  he  knew  no  man  whose  opinions  upon  this  subject 
were  entitled  to  greater  weight — if  he  meant  to  declare  that  it  was 
squandering  the  public  property  to  give  them  lands  in  return  for  the 
lives  of  their  soldiers,  in  return  for  the  blood  to  be  shed  in  this  for 
eign  war,  let  the  proposition  be  brought  forward  in  a  distinct  and 
separate  form,  and  he  would  be  as  ready  to  vote  upon  it  as  he  was 
when  attached  to  this  bill.  He  had  understood,  whether  the  project 
of  giving  bounty  land  originated  with  politicians  or  private  individ 
uals,  that  it  was  the  intention  of  Congress — an  intention  which  had 
been  expressed  in  both  Houses — that  the  soldier  who  served  in  this 
war  should  have  bounty  land  as  a  part  of  his  compensation  for  those 
services  which,  it  was  admitted  on  all  hands,  eminently  entitled  him 
to  some  compensation.  If  this  was  so,  what  became  of  the  argu 
ment  of  the  Senator  from  Missouri,  that  it  was  giving  away  eight 
millions  of  acres  of  the  public  lands,  of  the  value  of  twelve  millions 
of  dollars,  at  the  minimum  price  of  those  lands,  for  nothing? 

If  it  be  true,  continued  Mr.  Corwin,  that  the  gallant  men  who 
are  willing  to  fight  our  battles  in  Mexico  or  elsewhere — for  God 
knows  where  that  roving  army  of  yours  will  stop — if  it  be  true  that 
the  whole  population  of  this  country  capable  of  bearing  arms  are 
ready  to  precipitate  themselves  into  this  war  in  the  enemy's  country, 
and  that  without  price,  without  reward,  or  the  hope  of  reward, 
where  is  the  necessity  for  increasing  their  monthly  pay,  as  is  pro 
posed  by  the  bill  now  on  your  table?  Sir,  shall  we  drive  a  Jew's 
bargain  with  our  soldiers?  Shall  we  give  a  definite  value  for  their 
patriotism  ?  Shall  we  count  every  groan  ?  Shall  we  give  value  for 
every  drop  of  blood  ?  Shall  we  pay  so  much  for  a  soldier's  life  ?  So 
much  as  a  compensation  to  the  women  and  children  who  have  been 
made  widows  and  orphans  by  the  war?  Shall  we  give  them  an  esti 
mated  sum  as  value  for  their  loss  ?  But  I  do  not  suppose  that  any 
argument  such  as  this  could  very  readily  find  a  lodgment  in  the  head 
or  the  heart  of  any  Senator  here ;  nor  do  I  understand  that  the  Senator 
from  Missouri  wishes  anything  of  this  sort.  He  wishes  the  Senate 
to  pause,  and  lock  the  door  against  frauds,  while  granting  a  liberal 
compensation  to  the  soldier.  Now,  let  us  look  at  this  argument  a 
little  in  detail.  How  will  it  be  elaborated  into  a  fact? 

As  he  had  understood  the  Senate  to  determine  upon  giving 
these  bounty  lands  in  some  form  or  other,  and  as  he  understood  they 
were  for  giving  the  eight  millions  in  the  form  which  he  proposed  in 
his  amendment,  to  be  actually  settled  and  held  by  the  soldier  who 


272  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

performed  the  service,  or  by  some  representative  of  the  soldier,  he 
would  ask,  in  a  pecuniary  point  of  view  to  the  Government  itself,  if 
this  land  was  to  be  considered  revenue  and  property  which  the  Gov 
ernment  had  a  right  to  use,  by  giving  it  either  in  the  form  of  money 
or  in  the  form  of  bounties  to  soldiers  entering  the  war,  where  was 
the  difference,  as  far  as  the  Government  was  concerned,  whether  that 
eight  millions  of  acres  was  given  in  one  form  or  in  the  other?  The 
argument,  as  far  as  it  rested  upon  the  fact  of  giving  away  these 
lands,  it  seemed  to  him  the  Senator  had  not  well  considered.  The 
main  part  of  the  Senator's  opposition  rested  upon  his  desire  to  pro 
tect  the  soldier,  in  the  first  place,  from  the  frauds  which  might  be 
perpetrated  upon  him,  and,  in  the  next  place,  to  stay  the  march  of 
that  moral  pestilence,  of  those  villainies  which  would  be  practiced 
upon  the  soldier  if  this  bill  should  pass.  To  this  view  of  the  ques 
tion  he  was  inclined  to  attach  a  considerable  degree  of  importance. 
He  could  see  no  difference  between  allowing  the  soldier  who  dis 
charged  his  duty  in  the  public  service  to  be  paid  in  land,  or  in  allow 
ing  him  to  be  paid  in  money.  If  it  were  considered  that  the  valor 
and  courage  of  the  soldier  entitled  him  to  a  certain  amount  of  com 
pensation,  it  might  be  a  proper  subject  to  consider  whether  that 
amount  should  be  greater  or  less,  but  he  could  see  no  difference  at  all 
between  giving  him  land  or  money — none ;  none  to  the  Government, 
unquestionably;  none  whatever  in  any  scheme  of  finance  which 
might  be  presented  for  the  prosecution  of  this  war.  If,  therefore,  it 
were  desirable  that  Congress  should  give  to  the  soldier  a  certain 
amount  of  compensation,  it  could  just  as  well  be  given  in  the  form 
of  monthly  pay  as  in  a  grant  of  land.  He  could  see  no  difference 
between  granting  land,  from  which  the  resources  of  the  Government 
were  partly  to  be  derived,  and  creating  a  debt,  which  the  Senator  from 
Missouri  said  must  be  paid  by  the  next  generation,  and  voting  for  a 
loan  of  twenty-three  millions,  which  must  be  redeemed  at  the  time 
specified.  Gentlemen  did  not  seem  to  have  their  financial  apprehen 
sions  aroused  at  all  when  it  was  proposed  to  borrow  twenty-three 
millions  of  dollars,  for  which,  like  every  other  sum  borrowed  which 
they  were  unable  to  pay,  they  would  have  to  give  their  note.  There 
was  no  tremulous  apprehension  about  borrowing  money.  But  these 
were  considerations  which  should  have  been  thought  of  long  before 
they  entered  upon  this  unprofitable  war.  Borrowing  money  was  one 
of  the  curses  attending  upon  all  wars.  Debt  was  one  of  the  curses 
which  war  necessarily  involved — debt  to  be  entailed  upon  posterity, 


BOUNTY   LANDS   TO    SOLDIERS.  273 

if  the  present  generation  were  not  able  to  discharge  it.  It  could  not 
have  escaped  the  apprehensions  of  any  gentleman  who  held  a  seat 
upon  that  floor,  on  the  day  when  their  army  passed  the  Nueces,  or 
on  the  day  when  it  was  said  Congress  sanctioned  the  passage  of  the 
army  beyond  the  boundary  of  the  United  States — it  could  not  have 
escaped  their  apprehension  that  not  merely  twelve  millions  of  dol 
lars,  but  hundreds  of  millions  would  have  to  be  expended  upon  the 
war — a  war  to  be  carried  on  between  this  country  and  a  sister  repub 
lic,  which  they  had  undertaken  to  subjugate  by  their  arms.  The 
honorable  Senator  from  Missouri,  and  every  Senator,  must  be  aware 
that  this  would  be  the  consequence  of  their  conduct.  He  had  been 
somewhat  surprised,  he  confessed,  at  the  minute  details  given  of  the 
schemes  of  fraud  which  the  Senator  from  Missouri  had  asserted 
would  be  practiced,  and  he  doubted  not  such  reports  had  reached  his 
ears ;  but  he  was  pained  to  hear  such  schemes  of  peculation  and 
fraud  connected  with  the  names  of  certain  officers  of  the  Government. 
That  companies  of  scoundrels  would  be  formed  all  over  the  coun 
try,  as  the  Senator  said,  to  endeavor  to  despoil  the  soldier  of  his 
hard-earned  bounty,  he  had  no  doubt.  It  was  one  of  the  inevitable 
consequences  of  all  wars ;  it  was  one  of  the  curses  which  belonged 
to  a  state  of  war.  It  had  been  the  case,  as  the  Senator  from  Mis 
souri  had  said,  and  he  read  a  statement  of  Mr.  Jefferson  to  prove, 
after  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  war.  It  was  a  well-known  fact, 
that  the  men  who  had  passed  through  the  fires  of  the  struggle,  were 
found  endeavoring  to  defraud  each  other  out  of  what  they  had  re 
ceived  as  a  compensation  for  their  services.  It  had  ever  been  so,  and 
would  be  so  to  all  time,  as  long  as  human  nature  was  such  as  to 
induce  men  to  go  to  war  at  all.  So  long  as  men  could  find  no  better 
mode  of  settling  national  controversies  than  by  going  to  war;  of 
marching  armies  against  each  other  in  battle  array,  instead  of  follow 
ing  the  dictates  of  humanity;  instead  of  exercising  the  faculties 
with  which  God  had  endowed  them,  in  avoiding  the  necessity  of 
warfare,  there  would  be  scoundrels  enough  found  to  plunder  and 
cheat  one  another.  So  long  as  national  controversies  were  to  be  set 
tled  in  the  old  barbarous  mode,  so  long  would  such  a  disposition  be 
found  to  exist.  But  he  was  surprised  to  hear  from  the  Senator  from 
Missouri  that  the  very  officers  of  the  Government,  whose  appoint 
ments  the  Senate  was  called  upon  to  sanction,  and  commissioned  by 
the  President  to  carry  on  the  war,  which  was  emphatically  his  war, 
he  was  surprised  to  hear  that  men  in  this  position  would  be  found 
19 


274  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

so  reckless,  so  lost  to  the  dictates  of  honor  and  of  conscience,  as  to 
practice  frauds  of  this  description.      Could  this  be  true?     Could  it 
be  that  those  who  were  daily  associated  with  the  soldiers,  witnessing 
their  sufferings  and  hearing  the  groans  of  the  dying,  would  be  guilty 
of    robbing    the    soldier    of    the    bounty    which    his    country    had 
bestowed?     He  asked  the  Senator,  was  this  the  condition  in  which 
this  Republic  was  now  placed?     Were  such  the  official  instrumental 
ities  to  be  sent  abroad  to  execute  their  duties  in  the  service  of  the 
Government   upon  the  field  of  battle?     His  knowledge   of  human 
nature  would  hardly  allow  him  to  suppose  it  had  been  sunk  to  that 
depth  of  degradation  and  of  infamy.      Such  a  supposition  contem 
plated  the  existence  of  a  class  of  society  more  degraded  than  he  was 
willing  to  suppose  any  man  who  had  received  his  commission  from 
the  Government  could  be.      They  might,  perhaps,  find  in  the  dens 
and  hells  of  cities  men  who  would  come  out  from  their  hiding-places, 
when  they  knew  that  eight  millions  of  acres  of  land  had  been  put 
into  the  market  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  served,   but  he  did  not 
think  that  men  who  accompanied  the  soldier  at  his  last  gasp  would 
deliberately  plan  such  schemes  of  fraud.      He  said  he  did  not  believe 
it  was  competent  for  any  intelligent  man  to  frame  a  law,  or  devise  a 
plan  which  would  not  be  subject  to  the  objections  which  had  been 
raised  by  the  Senator  from  Missouri.      Men  ever  would  be  subject  to 
impositions,  but  he  did  not  believe  these  men  would  be  more  subject 
to  impositions  than  any  other  class  of  men. 

Mr.  Corwin  said  the  Senator  from  Pennsylvania  had  told  them 
that  if  they  would  pass  this  bill,  there  were  five  companies  now 
ready  to  volunteer,  and  to  take  the  field  from  that  State,  and  that 
they  consisted  of  some  of  the  best  men  of  that  State.  That  was  a 
pretty  good  certificate  of  character;  and  were  such  men  likely  to 
give  up  all  rights  belonging  to  them  to  bodies  of  scoundrels?  Did 
the  Senator  from  Missouri  mean  to  say  that  the  young  men  who  vol 
unteer  to  serve  their  country  are  the  sort  of  men  toward  whom  the 
Government  could  exercise  neither  the  functions  of  justice  nor  liber 
ality  without  having  the  bounty  of  the  Government  abused?  Were 
they  men  of  such  dissolute  habits  that  they  were  incapable  of  taking 
care  of  the  property  they  earned,  and  that  the  Government  must 
therefore  assume  toward  the  soldiers  of  our  army  the  relation  which 
some  of  the  States  assumed  under  the  laws  toward  confirmed  drunk 
ards,  and  appoint  them  guardians?  What  became  of  the  training 
and  discipline  of  which  they  had  heard  so  much  as  belonging  to  the 


BOUNTY    LANDS    TO    SOLDIERS.  275 

service  of  the  country?  What  became  of  the  moral  teachings  of  the 
chaplains,  for  whose  appointment  they  had  heard  so  much  ?  Was  it 
true,  in  short,  that  twenty  thousand  regular  soldiers  were  to  serve 
during  this  war,  and  go  through  a  moral  training  there,  and  that  they 
would  come  out  of  it  nothing  but  examples  of  vileness,  ignorance 
and  profligacy?  Was  it  true  that  the  men  who  volunteer  to  fight 
this  iniquitous  war  were  the  men  described  by  the  Senator  from  Mis 
souri,  not  able  to  exercise  the  necessary  functions  of  freemen,  and 
men  of  full  age?  He  would  not  undertake  to  put  his  opinion  on 
this  subject  against  the  opinion  of  the  Senator  from  Missouri — he 
would  not  lightly  question  the  statement  of  the  Senator  from  South 
Carolina  [MR.  BUTLER],  who  said  yesterday  that  none  were  fit  to 
fight  in  this  war  but  those  who  were  ready  to  sacrifice  their  own  will 
to  the  absolute  mastery  of  others ;  but  if  these  things  were  true,  it 
would  become  them  to  pause  and  consider  whether  it  was  not  best 
to  put  an  end  to  this  horrible  war.  If  it  were  true  that  in  enlisting 
twenty  thousand  soldiers  they  made  twenty  thousand  slaves  out  of 
twenty  thousand  freemen,  he  thought  it  would  be  poor  compensa 
tion,  both  for  the  generation  that  now  is  and  for  that  which  is  to 
come  after  us,  in  the  pompous  phrase  of  the  day,  at  such  a  cost  to 
vindicate  the  honor  of  the  country  and  the  glory  of  its  flag.  But  he 
could  not  think  that  the  representations  of  the  Senator  from  Mis 
souri  were  all  true.  He  could  not  believe  this  nation  would  plunge 
into  a  war  which  was  to  be  so  pernicious  in  its  consequences. 

The  Senator  from  Missouri  proposed  to  protect  the  soldier  from 
these  frauds  by  making  the  bounty  inalienable  for  seven  years.  This 
was  presuming  that  those  who,  as  the  Senator  from  Missouri  elo 
quently  described  it,  escaped  the  embrace  of  the  battle-storm,  and 
avoided  a  grave  upon  the  tops  of  the  Cordilleras,  were  not  capable 
of  controlling  the  bounty  which  the  Government  bestowed  upon 
them,  and  that  Congress  must,  therefore,  constitute  itself  their  guar 
dian.  He  was  of  opinion,  that  if  they  put  the  matter  upon  this 
footing,  and  said  to  the  soldier,  that  at  the  end  of  the  war  he  should 
emigrate  to  the  far  West  and  settle  upon  his  land,  or  else  be 
debarred  from  the  enjoyment  of  his  bounty  for  seven  years,  it  would 
have  the  effect  of  deterring  men  from  entering  the  army.  It  would 
hardly  be  necessary,  he  believed,  to  pass  an  act  to  prevent  a  Senator 
from  making  a  contract  respecting  his  traveling  allowance  and  per 
diem,  of  placing  any  lien  upon  it  for  a  certain  length  of  time,  lest 
the  money  might  fall  into  the  hands  of  speculators,  who  were  hover- 


276  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    COBWIN. 

ing  in  clouds  around  the  Capitol,  darkening  the  air  with  their  num 
bers.  That  would  be  a  strange  law;  but  he  thought  it  would  be 
quite  as  reasonable  as  the  restriction  proposed  by  the  Senator  to  be 
placed  upon  these  bounty  lands. 

After  some  further  remarks,  Mr.  Corwin  concluded  by  saying, 
that  he  thought  it  would  not  be  very  becoming  in  the  Senate  to  hes 
itate  to  grant,  out  of  800,000,000  acres  of  the  public  lands,  the  small 
pittance  of  8,000,000  to  the  soldiers  as  compensation  for  their  ser 
vices.  They  had  already  passed  a  bill  giving  5,000,000  acres  to 
those  who  choose  to  peacefully  settle  in  Oregon.  If  a  Southern 
gentleman,  with  his  black  servant,  went  to  Oregon,  that  servant 
would  be  entitled,  by  his  mere  residence  there,  to  avail  himself  of 
this  bounty.  While  looking  out  across  the  broad  Pacific,  and  con 
templating  the  time  when  the  descendants  of  Japhet  should  subju 
gate  the  descendants  of  Shem,  here  was  a  man  from  a  state  of  servi 
tude  becoming  a  free  man,  and  claiming  his  half  section  of  land, 
which  had  been  granted  by  the  bounty  of  this  Government.  While 
their  maw  was  capacious  enough  to  swallow  these  five  millions  in  ref 
erence  to  Oregon,  they  were  gurgling  and  choking  at  eight  millions 
to  be  granted  as  a  reward  for  the  valor  and  the  patriotism  of  those 
who  periled  their  lives  in  their  country's  service. 


ON  THE  MEXICAN  WAR. 


IN  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  February  nth,  1847,  tne  bill  making  further 
appropriations  to  bring  the  existing  war  with  Mexico  to  a  speedy  and  honorable  con 
clusion,  being  under  consideration,  MR.  CORWIN  said : 

MR.  PRESIDENT: 

I  am  not  now  about  to  perform  the  useless  task  of  surveying 
the  whole  field  of  debate  occupied  in  this  discussion.  It  has  been 
carefully  reaped,  and  by  vigilant  and  strong  hands;  and  yet,  Mr. 
President,  there  is  a  part  of  that  field  which^rojnnises^  to  reward  a 
careful  gLearter---with__a_valuable  sheaf  or  ±wj2^_ which  deserves _±Q_be 
bound  up  before  the  whole  harvest  is  gathered.  And  still  this  so 
tempting  prospect  could  not  have  allured  me  into  this  debate,  had  that 
motive  not  been  strengthened  by  another,  somewhat  personal  to  my 
self,  and  still  more  interesting  to  those  I  represent.  Anxious  as  I 
know  all  are  to  act,  rather  than  debate,  I  am  compelled,  for  the  rea 
sons  I  have  assigned,  to  solicit  the  attention  of  the  Senate.  I  do 
this  chiefly  that  I  may  discharge  the  humble  duty  of  giving  to  the 
Senate,  and  through  this  medium  to  my  constituents,  the  motives 
and  reasons  which  have  impelled  me  to  occupy  a  position  always 
undesirable,  but,  in  times  like  the  present,  painfully  embarrassing. 

I  have  been  compelled,  from  convictions  of  duty  which  I  could 
not  disregard,  to  differ  not  merely  with  those  on  the  other  side  of 
the  chamber,  with  whom  I  seldom  agree,  but  also  to  separate,  on 
one  or  two  important  questions,  from  a  majority  of  my  friends  on 
this  side — those  who  compose  here  that  Whig  party,  of  which,  I 
suppose,  I  may  yet  call  myself  a  member. 

Diversity  of  opinion,  on  most  subjects  affecting  human  affairs, 
is  to  be  expected.  Unassisted  mind,  in  its  best  estate,  has  not  yet 
attained  to  uniformity,  much  less  to  absolute  certainty,  in  matters 
belonging  to  the  dominion  of  speculative  reason.  This  is  peculiarly 
and  emphatically  true  where  we  endeavor  to  deduce  from  the  pres 
ent,  results,  the  accomplishment  of  which  reach  far  into  the  future, 

*(277) 


278  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

and  will  only  clearly  develop  themselves  in  the  progress  of  time. 
From  the  present  state  of  the  human  mind,  this  is  a  law  of  intellect 
quite  as  strong  as  necessity ;  and  yet,  after  every  reasonable  allow 
ance  for  the  radical  difference  in  intellectual  structure,  culture,  habits 
of  thought  and  the  application  of  thought  to  things,  the  singularly 
opposite  avowals  made  by  the  two  Senators  on  the  other  side  of  the 
chamber  (I  mean  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina,  Mr.  Calhoun, 
and  the  Senator  from  Michigan,  Mr.  Cass,)  must  have  struck  all  who 
heard  them  as  a  curious  and  mournful  example  of  the  truth  of  which 
I  have  spoken.  The  Senator  from  Michigan  [MR.  CASS],  in  contem 
plating  the  present  aspects  and  probable  future  course  of  our  public 
affairs,  declared  that  he  saw  nothing  to  alarm  the  fears  or  depress  the 
hopes  of  the  patriot.  To  his  serene,  and,  as  I  fear,  too  apathetic 
mind,  all  is  calm ;  the  sentinel  might  sleep  securely  on  his  watch- 
tower.  The  ship  of  State  seems  to  him  to  expand  her  sails  under  a. 
clear  sky,  and  move  on,  with  prosperous  gales,  upon  a  smooth  sea. 
He  admonishes  all  not  to  anticipate  evil  to  come,  but  to  fold  their 
hands  and  close  their  eyes  in  quietude,  ever  mindful  of  the  consola 
tory  text,  "sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof."  But  the 
Senator  from  South  Carolina  [MR.  CALHOUN],  summoning  from  the 
depths  of  his  thoughtful  and  powerful  mind  all  its  energies,  and 
looking  abroad  on  the  present  condition  of  the  republic,  is  pained 
with  fearful  apprehension,  doubt,  distrust  and  dismay.  To  his  vis 
ion,  made  strong  by  a  long  life  of  careful  observation,  made  keen  by 
a  comprehensive  view  of  past  history,  the  sky  seems  overcast  with 
impending  storms,  and  the  dark  future  is  shrouded  in  impenetrable 
gloom.  When  two  such  minds  thus  differ,  those  less  familiar  with 
great  subjects  affecting  the  happiness  of  nations  may  well  pause, 
before  they  rush  to  a  conclusion  on  this,  a  subject  which,  in  all  its 
bearings,  immediate  and  remote,  affects  certainly  the  present  prosper 
ity,  and  probably  the  liberty,  of  two  republics,  embracing  together 
nearly  thirty  millions  of  people.  JVir.  President^  it  is_a_fearful 
responsibility  we  have  assumed ;  engaged  in  flagrant,  desolating  war 
with  a  neighboring  republic,  to  us  thirty  millions  of  God's  creatures 
look  up  for  that  moderated  wisdom  which,  if  possible,  may  stay  the 
march  of  misery,  and  restore  to  them,  if  it  may  be  so,  mutual  feel 
ings  of  good-will,  with  all  the  best  blessings  of  peace. 

I  sincerely  wish  it  were  in  my  power  to  cherish  those  placid 
convictions  of  security  which  have  settled  upon  the  mind  of  the  Sen 
ator  from  Michigan.  So  far  from  this,  I  have  been,  in  common  with 


ON    THE     MEXICAN    WAR.  279 

the  Senator  from  South  Carolina,  oppressed  with  melancholy  fore 
bodings  of  evils  to  come,  and  not  unfrequently  by  a  conviction  that 
each  step  we  take  in  this  unjust  war,  may  be  the  last  in  our  career; 
that  each  chapter  we  write  in  Mexican  blood,  may  close  the  volume 
of  our  history  as  a  free  people.  Sir,  I  am  the  less  inclined  to  listen 
to  the  siren  song  the  Senator  from  Michigan  sings  to  his  own  soul, 
because  I  have  heard  its  notes  before.  I  know  the  country  is  at 
this  moment  suffering  from  the  fatal  apathy  into  which  it  was  lulled 
a  few  years  ago.  Every  one  must  recall  to  his  mind,  with  pleasing 
regret,  the  happy  condition  of  the  country  in  1843,  when  that  other 
question,  the  prelude  to  this,  the  annexation  of  Texas,  was  agitated 
here;  we  remember  how  it  attracted  the  attention  of  the  whole 
Union ;  we  remember  that  the  two  great  leaders  of  the  two  great  par 
ties,  agreeing  in  scarcely  any-.otbfr  opinion^  were  agreed  in  thflf-. 
They  both  predicted  that  if  Texas  were  annexed,  war  with  Mexico 
would  be  the  probable  result.  We  were  told  then  by  others,  as  now 
by  the  Senator  from  Michigan,  that  all  was  well — all  was  calm ;  that 
Mexico  would  not  fight,  or  if  she  would,  she  was  too  weak  to  wage 
the  struggle  with  any  effect  upon  us.  The  sentinel  was  then  told  to 
sleep  upon  his  watch-tower;  "sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil 
thereof,"  was  sung  to  us  then  in  notes  as  soft  and  sweet  as  now.  Mr. 
President,  "the  day"  has  come,  and  with  it  has  come  war,  the  most 
direful  curse  wherewith  it  has  pleased  God  to  afflict  a  sinful  world. 
Such  have  been  the  fatal  effects  of  lulling  into  apathy  the  public 
mind,  on  a  subject  which  agitated  it,  as  well  it  might,  to  its  pro- 
foundest  depths. 

I  repeat,  sir,  the  day  has  come,  as  was  then  predicted,  and  the 
evil  predicted  has  come  with  it.  We  are  here,  sir,  now,  not  as  then, 
at  peace  with  all  the  world ;  not  now,  as  then,  with  laws  that  brought 
into  your  treasury  everything  adequate  to  its  wants ;  not  now,  as 
then,  free  from  debt,  and  the  apprehension  of  debt  and  taxation,  its 
necessary  consequence.  But  we  are  here  with  a  treasury  that  is  beg- L 
gared ;  that  lifts  up  its  imploring  hands  to  the  monopolists  and  capi 
talists  of  the  country;  that  sends  out  its  notes  and  "promises  to 
pay"  into  every  mart  and  every  market  in  the  world,  begging  for  a 
pittance  from  every  hand  to  help  to  swell  the  amount  now  necessary 
to  extricate  us  from  a  war,  inevitable,  as  it  now  seems  it  was,  from 
that  very  act  which  was  adopted  under  such  flattering  promises  two 
years  ago.  Mr.  President,  it  is  no  purpose  of  mine  to  arraign  the 
conduct  of  the  United  States  upon  that  occasion ;  it  is  no  purpose  of 


280  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

mine  to  treat  .this  young  and  newly-adopted  sister — the  State  of 
Texas — as  an  alien  or  stranger  in  this  family  of  republics.  I  allude 
to  this  only  to  show  how  little  reliance  is  to  be  placed  upon  those 
favorable  anticipations  in  which  gentlemen  indulge  with  regard  to 
consequences  which  may  flow  from  measures  to  which  they  are 
strongly  wedded,  either  by  feeling  or  party  attachment. 

Is  there  nothing  else  in  our  history  of  even  the  past  year  to  jus 
tify  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina  in  the  pregnant  declaration, 
that  in  the  whole  period  of  his  public  life,  comprehending  the  most 
eventful  in  the  history  of  the  Republic,  there  had  never  been  a  time 
when  so  much  danger  was  threatened  to  the  interests,  happiness  and 
liberties  of  the  people.  Sir,  if  any  one  could  sit  down,  free  from 
the  excitements  and  biases  which  belong  to  public  affairs — could  such 
a  one  betake  himself  to  those  sequestered  solitudes,  where  thought 
ful  men  extract  the  philosophy  of  history  from  its  facts,  I  am  quite 
sure  no  song  of  "all's  well"  would  be  heard  from  his  retired  cell. 
No,  sir,  looking  at  the  events  of  the  last  twelve  months,  and  form 
ing  his  judgment  of  these  by  the  suggestions  which  history  teaches, 
and  which  she  alone  can  teach,  he  would  record  another  of  those  sad 
lessons  which,  though  often  taught,  are,  I  fear,  forever  to  be  disre 
garded.  He  would  speak  of  a  Republic,  boasting  that  its  rights 
were  secured,  and  the  restricted  powers  of  its  functionaries  bound 
up  in  the  chains  of  a  written  Constitution;  he  would  recpjrd.__on_Jais 
page,  also,  that  such  a  people,  -  in~  ±he  wantonness  of  strength  or  the 
fancied  security  of  the  moment,  had  torn  that  written  Constitution 
to  pieces,  scattered  its  fragments  to  the  winds,  and  surrendered 
themselves  to  the  usurped  authority  of  ONE  MAN. 

He  would  find  written  in  that  Constitution,  Congress  shall  have 
power  to  declare  war;  he  would  find  everywhere,  in  that  old  charter, 
proofs  -.clear  and  strong,  that  they  who  framed  it  intended  that  Con 
gress,  composed  of  two  Houses,  the  representatives  of  the  States, 
and  the  people,  should  (if  any  were  pre-eminent)  be  the  controlling 
power.  He  would  find  there  a  President  designated ;  whose  general 
afld  almost  exclusive  duty  it  is  to  execute,  not  to  make  the  law.  Turn 
ing  from  this  to  the  history  of  the  last  ten  months,  he  would  find 
that  the  President  alone,  without  the  advice  or  consent  of  Congress, 
had,  by  a  bold  usurpation,  made  war  on  a  neighboring  republic; 
and  what  is  quite  as  much  to  be  deplored,  that  Congress^. whose 
high  powers  were  thus  set  at  naught  and  defied,  had,  with 
ready  and  tame  submission,  yielded  to  the  usurper  the  wealth  and 


ON    THE    MEXICAN    WAR.  281 

power  of  the  nation  to  execute  his  will,  as  if  to  swell  his  iniquitous 
triumph  over  the  very  Constitution  which  he  and  they  had  alike 
sworn  to  support 

If  any  one  should  inquire  for  the  cause  of  a  war  in  this  coun 
try,  where  should  he  resort  for  an  answer  ?  Surely  to  the  journals  of 
both  Houses  of  Congress,  since  Congress  alone  has  power  to  declare 
war ;  yet,  although  we  have  been  engaged  in  war  for  the  last  ten 
months,  a  war  which  has  tasked  all  the  fiscal  resources  of  the  coun 
try  to  carry  it  forward,  you  shall  search  the  records  and  the  archives 
of  both  Houses  of  Congress  in  vain  for  any  detail  of  its  causes,  any 
resolve  of  Congress  that  war  shall  be  waged.  How  is  it,  then,  that 
a  peaceful  and  peace-loving  people,  happy  beyond  the  common  lot 
of  man,  busy  in  ever}-  laudable  pursuit  of  life,  have  been  forced  to 
turn  suddenly  from  these  and  plunge  into  the  misery,  the  vice  and  - 
crime  which  ever  have  been,  and  ever  shall  be,  the  attendant 
scourges  of  war?  The.  answer  can  only  be,  it  was  by  the  act  and 
will  of  the  President  alone,  and  not  by  the  act  or  will  of  Congress, 
the  war-making  department  of  the  Government. 

MrT^President,  was  it  not  due  to  ourselves,  to  the  lofty  charac 
ter  for  peace  as  well  as  probity  which  we  profess  to  be  ours,  and 
which  till  recently  we  might  justly  claim — was  it  not  due  to  the  civ 
ilization  of  the  age,  that  we,  the  representatives  of  the  States  and 
the  people,  should  have  set  forth  the  causes  which  might  impel  us  to 
invoke  the  fatal  arbitrament  of  war,  before  we  madly  rushed  upon  it  ? 
Even  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina,  attached  as  he  has  been  by 
party  ties  to  the  President,  and  therefore,  as  we  may  suppose, 
acquainted  with  his  motives  for  his  war  with  Mexico,  was  compelled 
to  say  the  other  day  in  debate,  that,  up  to  that  hour,  the  causes  of 
this  war  were  left  to  conjecture.  The  reason  of  this  singular  anom 
aly,  sir,  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  President,  and  not  Con 
gress,  declared  and  commenced  this  war.  Ho\v  is  this,  Mr.  Presi 
dent?  How  is  it  that  we  have  so  disappointed  the  intentions  of  our 
fathers,  and  the  hopes  of  all  the  friends  of  written  Constitutions? 
When  the  makers  of  that  Constitution  assigned  to  Congress  alone, 
the  most  delicate  and  important  power — to  declare  war — a  power 
more  intimately  affecting  the  interests,  immediate  and  remote,  of  the 
people,  than  any  which  a  government  is  ever  called  on  to  exert — 
when  they  withheld  this  great  prerogative  from  the  Executive  and 
confided  it  to  Congress  alone,  they  but  consulted  in  this,  as  in  every 
other  work  of  their  hands,  the  gathered  wisdom  of  all  preceding 


282  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

times.  Whether  they  looked  to  the  stern  despotisms  of  the  ancient 
Asiatic  world,  or  the  military  yoke  of  imperial  Rome,  or  the  feudal 
institutions  of  the  middle  ages,  or  the  more  modern  monarchies  of 
Europe,  in  each  and  all  of  these,  where  the  power  to  wage  war  was 
held  by  one  or  by  a  few,  it  had  been  used  to  sacrifice,  not  to  protect 
the  many.  The  caprice  or  ambition  of  the  tyrant  had  always  been 
the  cause  of  bloody  and  wasting  war,  while  the  subject  millions  had 
been  treated  by  their  remorseless  masters,  only  as  "tools  in  the 
hands  of  him  who  knew  how  to  use  them."  They  therefore  declared 
that  this  fearful  power  should  be  confided  to  those  who  represent  the 
people,  and  those  who  here  in  the  Senate  represent  the  sovereign 
States  of  the  Republic.  After  securing  this  power  to  Congress, 
they  thought  it  safe  to  give  the  command  of  the  armies  in  peace  and 
war  to  the  President.  We  shall  see  hereafter,  how  by  an  abuse  of 
his  power  as  commander-in-chief,  the  President  has  drawn  to  himself 
that  of  declaring  war,  or  commencing  hostilities  with  a  people  with 
whom  we  were  on  terms  of  peace,  which  is  substantially  the  same. 

The  men  of  former  times  took  very  .good  care  that  your  stand 
ing  army  should  be  exceedingly  small,  and  they  who  -JbLad.the__most 
lively  apprehensions  of  investing  in  one  man  the  power  to  command 
the  army,  always  inculcated  upon  the,  minds  of  the  people  the  neces 
sity  of  keeping  that  army  within  limits,  just  as  small  as  the  necessity 
of  the  external  relations  of  the  country  would  possibly  admit  It 
has  happened,  Mr.  President,  that  when  a  little  disturbance  on  your 
Indian  frontier  took  place,  Congress  was  invoked  for  an  increase  of 
your  military  force.  Gentlemen  came  here  who  had  seen  partial  ser 
vice  in  the  armies  of  the  United  States.  They  tell  you  that  the  militia 
of  the  country  is  not  to  be  relied  upon — that  it  is  only  in  the  regular 
army  of  the  United  States  that  you  are  to  find  men  competent  to 
fight  the  battles  of  the  country,  and  from  time  to  time  when  that 
necessity  has  seemed  to  arise,  forgetting  this  old  doctrine,  that  a 
large  standing  army  in  time  of  peace  was  always  dangerous  to  human 
liberty,  we  have  increased  that  army  from  six  thousand  up  to  about 
sixteen  thousand  men.  Mr.  President,  the  other  day  we  gave  ten 
regiments  more;  and  for  not  giving  it  within  the  quick  time 
demanded  by  our  master,  the  commander-in-chief,  somejmjnipn,  I 
know  not  who,  for  I  have  not  looked  into  this  matter  until  this  morn 
ing,  feeding  upon  the  fly-blown  remnants  that  fall  from  the  Execu 
tive  shambles  and  lie  putrefying  there,  has  denounced  us  as  Mexi 
cans,  and  called  the  American  Republic  to  take  notice,  that  there 


ON    THE    MEXICAN    WAR.  283 

was  in  the  Senate,  a  body  of  men   chargeable  with  incivism — Mexi 
cans  in  heart — traitors  to  the  United  States. 

I  trust,  Mr.  President,  that  our  master  will  be  appeased  by  the 
facility  with  which,  immediately  after  that  rebuke  of  his  minion,  the 
Senate  acted  upon  the  bill  and  gave  him  the  army  which  he  required. 
I  trust  that  he  will  now  forget  that  law  which,  as  commander-in-chief 
of  the  army  of  the  United  States  and  President  of  this  great  North 
American  Republic  for  the  time  being,  he  promulgated  to  us  in  the 
message,  and  those  commands  which  he  was  pleased  to  deliver  at  the 
opening  of  this  session  to  his  faithful  and  humble  servitors  in  both 
branches  of  the  American  Congress,  admonishing  us  that  we  would 
be  considered  as  giving  "aid  and  comfort"  to  his  enemy — not  ours! 
— his — if  one  word  should  be  said  unfavorable  to  the  motives  which 
have  brought  the  royal  will  to  the  conclusion  that  he  would  precipi 
tate  this  Republic  into  a  war  with  Mexico!  I  trust  His  Majesty,  in 
consideration  of  our  faithful  services  in  augmenting  the  forces  of  the 
Republic  agreeably  to  the  commands  which  we  have  received  from 
the  throne,  will  be  induced  to  relax  a  little  when  he  comes  to  exe 
cute  that  law  of  treason  upon  one  at  least  so  humble  as  myself!  I 
do  remember,  Mr.  President, — you  will  remember,  Mr.  President, — 
your  recollection  of  history-  will  furnish  you  with  a  case  which  will, 
I  think,  operate  in  my  favor  in  a  question  of  that  sort. 

Some  time  in  the  history  of  the  royal  Tudors  in  England,  when 
a  poor  Englishman,  for  differing  from  His  Majesty,  or  Her  Majesty, 
on  some  subject — it  might  be  religious  faith — was  condemned  to  be 
hanged  and  quartered  and  emboweled,  out  of  special  grace,  in  a  par 
ticular  case  where  penitence  was  expressed,  the  hangman  was  admon 
ished  to  give  the  culprit  time  to  choke  before  he  began  to  chop  up 
his  limbs__and  take  out  his  bowels! 

Now,  Mr.  President,  I  have  already  stated  that  I  do  not  intend 
to  occupy  the  Senate  with  a  discussion  of  those  varieties  of  topics 
which  naturally  enforce  themselves  upon  my  attention  in  considering 
this  subject.  It  must  have  occurred  to  everybody  how  utterly  impo 
tent  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  now  is  for  any  purpose  what 
ever,  but  that  of  yielding  to  the  President  every  demand  which  he 
makes  for  men  and  money,  unless  they  assume  that  only  position 
which  is  left — that  which,  in  the  history  of  other  countries,  in  times 
favorable  to  human  liberty,  has  been  so  often  resorted  to  as  a  check 
upon  arbitrary  power — withholding  money,  refusing  to  grant  the  ser- 


284  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIX. 

vices  of  men  when  demanded  for  purposes  which  are  not  deemed  to 
be  proper. 

When  I  review  the  doctrines  of  the  majority  here,  and  consider 
their  application  to  the  existing  war,  I  confess  I  am  at  a  loss  to 
determine  whether  the  world  is  to  consider  our  conduct  as  a  ridicu 
lous  farce,  or  be  lost  in  amazement  at  such  absurdity  in  a  people 
calling  themselves  free.  The  President,  without  asking  the  consent 
of  Congress,  involves  us  in  war,  and  the  majority  here,  without  ref 
erence  to  the  justice  or  necessity  of  the  war,  call  upon  us  to  grant 
men  and  money  at  the  pleasure  of  the  President,  who  they  say,  is 
charged  with  the  duty  of  carrying  on  the  war  and  responsible  for  its 
result.  If  we  grant  the  means  thus  demanded,  the  President  can 
carry  forward  this  war  for  any  end,  or  from  any  motive,  without 
limit  of  time  or  place. 

With  these  doctrines  for  our  guide,  I  will  thank  any  Senator  to 
furnish  me  with  any  means  of  escaping  from  the  prosecution  of  this 
or  any  other  war  for  a  hundred  years  to  come,  if  it  pleased  the 
President  who  shall  be,  to  continue  it  so  long.  Tell  me,  ye  who 
contend  that  being  in  war,  duty  demands  of  Congress  for  its  prose 
cution,  all  the  money  and  every  able-bodied  man  in  America  to  carry 
it  on  if  need  be,  who  also  contend  that  it  is  the  right  of  the  Presi 
dent,  without  the  control  of  Congress,  to  march  your  embodied 
hosts  to  Monterey,  to  Yucatan,  to  Mexico,  to  Panama,  to  China,  and 
that  under  penalty  of  death  to  the  officer  who  disobeys  him — tell 
me,  I  demand  it  of  you,  tell  me,  tell  the  American  people,  telLthe 
nations  of  Christendom,  what  is  the  difference  between  your  Ameri 
can  democracy  and  the  most  odious,  _most  hateful  despotism,  that  a 
merciful  God  has  ever  allowed  a  nation  to  be  afflicted  with  since  gov 
ernment  on  earth  began?  You  may  call  this  free  government,  but 
it  is  such  freedom,  and  no  other,  as  of  old  was  established  at  Baby 
lon,  at  Susa,  at  Bactriana,  or  Persepolis.  Its  parallel  is  scarcely  to 
be  found  when  thus  falsely  understood,  in  any  even  the  worst  forms 
of  civil  polity  in  modern  times.  Sir,  it  is  not  so,  such  is  not  your 
Constitution,  it  is  something  else,  something  other  and  better  than 
this. 

I  have  looked  at  this  subject  with  a  painful  endeavor  to  come  to 
the  conclusion,  if  possible,  that  it  was  my  duty,  as  a  Senator  of  the 
United  States,  finding  the  country  in  war,  to  "fight  it  out,"  as  we 
say  in  the  common  and  popular  phrase  of  the  times,  to  a  just  and 
honorable  peace !  I  could  very  easily  concede  that  to  be  my  duty  if 


ON    THE    MEXICAN    WAR.  285 

I  found  my  country  engaged  in  a  just  war — in  a  war  necessary  even 
to  protect  that  fancied  honor  of  which  you  talk  so  much.  I  then 
should  have  some  apology  in  the  judgment  of  my  country,  in  the 
determination  of  my  conscience,  and  in  that  appeal  which  you,  and 
I,  and  all  of  us  must  soon  be  required  to  make  before  a  tribunal, 
where  this  vaunted  honor  of  the  Republic,  I  fear  me,  will  gain  but 
little  credit  as  a  defense  to  any  act  we  may  perform  here  in  the  Sen 
ate  of  the  United  States. 

But  when  I  am  asked  to  say  whether  I  will  prosecute  a  war,  I 
cannot  answer  that  question,  yea  or  nay,  until  I  have  determined 
whether  that  was  a  necessary  war ;  and  I  cannot  determine  whether  it 
was  necessary  until  I  know  how  it  was  that  my  country  was  involved 
in  it.  And  it  is  to  that  particular  point,  Mr.  President, — without 
reading  documents,  but  referring  to  a  few  facts  which  I  understand 
not  to  be  denied  on  either  side  of  this  chamber — that  I  wish  to 
direct  the  attention  of  the  American  Senate,  and  so  far  as  may  be, 
that  of  any  of  the  noble  and  honest-hearted  constituents  whom  I 
represent  here.  I  know,  Mr.  President,  the  responsibility  which  I 
assume  in  undertaking  to  determine  that  the  President  of  the  United 
States  has  done  a  great  wrong  to  the  country,  whose  honor  and 
whose  interest  he  was  required  to  protect.  I  know  the  denuncia 
tions  which  await  every  one  who  shall  dare  to  put  himself  in  opposi 
tion  to  that  high  powerr— that  idol  god — which  the  people  of  this 
country  have  made  to  themselves  and  called  a  President. 

But  it  is  my  very  humility  which  makes  me  bold.  I  know,  sir, 
that  he  who  was  told  in  former  time  how  to  govern  a  turbulent  peo 
ple,  was  advised  to  cut  off  the  tallest  heads.  Mine  will  escape! 
Still,  holding  a  seat  here,  Mr.  President,  and  finding  it  written  in  the 
Constitution  of  my  country  that  I  had  the  power  to  grant  to  the 
President  at  his  bidding,  or  not,  as  I  pleased,  men  and  money^I  did 
conceive  that  it  became  my  duty  to  ascertain  whether  the  President's 
request  was  a  reasonable  one — whether  the  President  wanted  these 
men  and  this  money  for  a  proper  and  laudable  purpose  or  not;  and 
with  these  old-fashioned  ideas — quite  as  unpopular,  I  fear,  with  some 
on  this  side  of  the  Chamber  as  we  find  them  to  be  on  the  other — I 
set  myself  to  this  painful  investigation.  I  found  not  quite  enough 
along  with  me  to  have  saved  the  unrighteous  city  of  old. 

There  were  not  five  of  us,  but  only  three !  And  when  these 
votes  were  called,  and  I  was  compelled  to  separate  myself  from 
almost  all  around  me,  I  could  have  cried  as  did  the  man  of  Uz  in  his 


286  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

affliction  in  the  elder  time — "What  time  my  friends  wax  warm  they 
vanish,  when  it  is  hot  they  are  consumed  out  of  their  places!" 

I  could  not  leave  the  position  in  which  it  had  pleased  the  State 
of  Ohio  to  place  me,  and  I  returned  again  and  again  to  the  original 
and  primary  and  important  inquiry — how  is  it  that  my  country  is 
involved  in  this  war  ?  I  looked  to  the  President's  account  of  it,  and 
he  tells  me  it  was  a  war  for  the  defense  of  the  territory  of  the 
United  States.  I  found  it  written  in  that  message,  Mr.  President, 
that  this  war  was  not  sought  nor  forced  upon  Mexico  by  the  people  of 
the  United  States.  I  shall  make  no  question  of  history  or  the  truth 
of  history  with  my  master,  the  commander-in-chief,  upon  that  partic 
ular  proposition.  On  the  contrary,  I  could  verify  every  word  that 
he  thus  utters.  Sir,  I  know  that  \\\a  people  of  the  United  States  nei 
ther  sought  nor  forced  Mexico  into  this  war,  and  yet  I  know  that  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  with  the  command  of  your  standing 
army,  did  seek  that  war,  and  that  fie  forced  the  war  upon  Mexico.  I 
am  not  about  to  afflict  the  Senate  with  a  detail  of  testimony  on  that 
point.  I  will  simply  state  facts  which  few,  I  trust,  will  be  found  to 
deny. 

One  of  the  facts,  Mr.  President,  is  this:  That  in  the  year  of 
grace,  1836,  the  battle  of  San  Jacinto  was  fought.  Does  anybody 
deny  that?  No  one  here  will  doubt  that  fact.  The  result  of  that 
battle  was  that  a  certain  district  of  country,  calling  itself  Texas, 
declared  itself  a  free  and  independent  republic.  I  hope  the  Senate 
will  pardon  me  for  uttering  a  thought  or  two,  which  strikes  me  just 
now  while  I  see  the  Senator  from  Texas,  the  leader  of  the  men  who 
achieved  that  victory,  before  me.  I  wish  to  say  a  word  or  two 
about  the  great  glory,  the  historical  renown,  that  is  to  come  to  the 
people  of  the  United  States  by  the  victories  which  we  shall  obtain 
over  the  arms  and  forces  of  the  Republic  of  Mexico.  I  suppose, 
Mr.  President,  like  all  other  boys,  in  my  early  youth,  when  I  had  an 
opportunity  of  looking  at  a  book  called  history,  those  which  spoke 
of  bloody  battles  and  desolating  wars  were  most  likely  to  attract  my 
attention ;  and  with  very  limited  means  of  ascertaining  that  portion 
of  the  history  of  the  human  race,  it  nevertheless  has  impressed 
itself  very  vividly  upon  my  mind  that  there  have  been  great  wars, 
and,  as  the  old  maxim  has  it,  "many  brave  men  before  Agamem 
non." 

Sir,  the  world's  annals  show  very  many  ferocious  sieges,  and 
battles,  and  onslaughts  before  San  Jacinto,  Palo  Alto  or  Monterey. 


ON    THE    MEXICAN    WAR.  287 

Generals  of  bloody  renown  have  frightened  the  nations  before  the 
revolt  of  Texas,  or  our  invasion  of  Mexico ;  and  I  suppose  we 
Americans  might  properly  claim  some  share  in  this  martial  reputa 
tion,  since  it  was  won  by  our  own  kindred,  men  clearly  descended 
from  Noah,  the  great  "propositus"  of  our  family,  with  whom  we  all 
claim  a  very  endearing  relationship.  But  I  confess,  I  have  been 
somewhat  surprised  of  late,  that  men,  read  in  the  history  of  man, 
who  knew  that  war  has  been  his  trade  for  six  thousand  years 
(prompted,  I  imagine,  by  those  "noble  instincts"  spoken  of  by  the 
Senator  from  Michigan),  who  knew  that  the  first  man  born  of 
woman  was  a  hero  of  the  first  magnitude,  that  he  met  his  shepherd 
brother  in  deadly  conflict,  and  most  heroically  beat  out  his  brains 
with  a  club — I  say,  sir,  I  am  somewhat  puzzled  when  I  hear  those 
whojcnew  all  these  thingg"well,  nevertheless  shouting  pseans  of  glory 
to  the  American  name,  for  the  few  deeds  of  death  which  our  noble 
little  army  in  Mexico  has  as  yet  been  able  to  achieve. 

But,  sir,  let  me  recur  again  to  the  battle  of  ^anjacinta  The 
Senator  from  Texas  [GENERAL  HOUSTON],  now  in  his  seat,  com 
manded  there.  His  army  consisted  of  about  seven  hundred  and 
fifty  men.  These  were  collected  from  all  parts  of  the  United  States, 
and  from  the  population  of  Texas,  then  numbering  about  ten  thou 
sand  souls.  With_this  army,  undisciplined,  badly  armed  and  indiffer 
ently  furnished  in  all  respects,  the  Senator  from  Texas  conquered  a 
Mexican  army  of  about  3,500  men;  took  their  commander,  Santa 
Anna,  then  President  of  Mexico,  prisoner,  with  the  whole  of  his 
forces.^  Texas  declared  her  independence,  and  alone  maintained  it 
against  the  power  of  Mexico  for  seven  years,  and  since  that  time  has 
been^a  State  under  the  shield  of  our  protection.  It  is  against  this 
same  Mexico  that  twenty  millions  of  Anglo-Saxon  Americans  send 
forth  their  armies.  The  great  North  American  Republic  buckles  on 
her  armor,  and  her  mighty  bosom  heaves  with  the  "gaudia  ccrtam- 
inis^  as  she  marches  under  her  eagle  banners  to  encounter  a  foe, 
who,  ten  years  ago,  was  whipped  by  an  army  of  seven  hundred  and 
fifty  undisciplined  militia,  and  bereft  of  a  territory  larger  than  the 
empire  of  France,  which  her  conqueror  held  in  her  despite  for  seven 
years,  and  then  quietly  transferred  her  territory  and  power  to  you. 
Sir,  if  the  joint  armies  of  the  United  States  and  Texas  are  to  acquire 
renown  by  vanquishing  Mexico,  what  honors  are  too  great  to  be 
denied  to  Texas  for  her  victory  over  this  Mexico  ten  years  ago?  If, 
by  vanquishing  such  a  foe,  you  are  to  win  renown  in  war,  what  lau- 


288  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

rels  should  you  not  wreathe  around  the  brows  of  those  who  fought 
at  San  Jacinto,  especially  when  history  tells  of  the  killed  and 
wounded  in  the  latter  fight,  she  records  that  just  three  were  killed  in 
mortal  combat,  while  two  died  of  their  wounds  "when  the  battle 
was  done!!!"  Oh,.  Mr.  President,  does  it  indeed  become  this  great 
Republic  to  cherish  the  heroic  wish  to  measure  arms  with  the  long 
since  conquered,  distracted,  anarchic  and  miserable  Mexico  ? 

Mr.  President,  I  trust  we  shall  abandon  the  idea,  the  heathen, 
barbarian  notion,  that  our  true  national  glory  is  to  be  won,  or 
retained,  by  military  prowess  or  skill  in  the  art  of  destroying  life. 
And,  while  I  cannot  but  lament,  for  the  permanent  and  lasting 
renown  of  my  country,  that  she  should  command  the  service  of  her 
children  in  what  I  must  consider  wanton,  unprovoked,  unncccssaty, 
and,  therefore,  unjust  war,  I  can  yield  to  the  brave  soldier,  whose 
trade  is  war,  and  whose  duty  is  obedience,  the  highest  meed  of 
praise  for  his  courage,  his  enterprise  and  perpetual  endurance  of  the 
fatigues  and  horrors  of  war.  I  know  the  gallant  men  who  are 
engaged  in  fighting  your  battles  possess  personal  bravery  equal  to 
any  troops,  in  any  land,  anywhere  engaged  in  the  business  of  war. 
I  do  not  believe  we  are  less  capable  in  the  art  of  destruction  than 
others,  or  less  willing,  on  the  slightest  pretext,  to  unsheath'  the 
sword,  and  consider  "revenge  a  virtue."  I  could  wish,  also,  that 
your  brave  soldiers,  while  they  bleed  and  die  on  the  battle-field, 
might  have  (what  in  this  war  is  impossible)  the  consolation  to  feel 
and  know  that  their  blood  flowed  in  defense  of  a  great  right — that 
their  lives  were  a  meet  sacrifice  to  an  exalted  principle. 

But,  sir,  I  return  to  our  relations  with  Mexico.  Texas,  I  have 
shown,  having  won  her  independence,  and  torn  from  Mexico  about 
one-fourth  part  of  her  territory,  comes  to  the  United  States,  sinks 
her  national  character  into  the  less  elevated,  but  more  secure,  posi 
tion  of  one  of  the  United  States  of  America.  The  revolt  of  Texas, 
her  successful  war  with  Mexico,  and  a  consequent  loss  of  a  valuable 
province,  all  inured  to  the  ultimate  benefit  of  our  Government  and 
our  country.  While  Mexico  was  weakened  and  humbled,  we,  in  the 
same  proportion,  were  strengthened  and  elevated.  All  this  was 
done  against  the  wish,  the  interest  and  the  earnest  remonstrance  of 
Mexico. 

Every  one  can  feel,  if  he  will  examine  himself  for  a  moment, 
what  must  have  been  the  mingled  emotions  of  pride,  humiliation  and 
bitter  indignation,  which  raged  in  the  bosoms  of  the  Mexican  peo- 


ON    THE    MEXICAN    WAR.  289 

pie,  when  they  saw  one  of  their  fairest  provinces  torn  from  them  by 
a  revolution,  moved  by  a  foreign  people ;  and  that  province,  by  our 
act  and  our  consent,  annexed  to  the  already  enormous  expanse  of 
our  territory.  It  is  idle,  Mr.  President,  to  suppose  that  the  Mexican 
people  would  not  feel  as  deeply  for  the  dismemberment  and  disgrace 
of  their  country  as  you  would  for  the  dismemberment  of  this  Union 
of  ours.  Sir,  there  is  not  a  race,  nor  tribe,  nor  people  on  the  earth, 
who  have  an  organized  social  or  political  existence,  who  have  clung 
with  more  obstinate  affection  to  every  inch  of  soil  they  could  call 
their  own,  than  this  very  Spanish,  this  Mexican,  this  Indian  race,  in 
that  country.  So  strong  and  deep  is  this  sentiment  in  the  heart  of 
that  half-savage,  half-civilized  race,  that  it  has  become  not  merely  an 
opinion,  a  principle,  but  with  them  an  unreasoning  fanaticism.  So 
radically  deep  and  strong  has  this  idea  rooted  itself  into  the  Mexican 
mind,  that  I  learn  recently  it  has  been  made  a  part  of  the  new  funda-- 
mental  law,  that  not  an  inch  of  Mexican  soil  shall  ever  be  alienated 
to  a  foreign  power ;  that  her  territory  shall  remain  entire  as  long  as 
her  republic  endures;  that,  if  one  of  her  limbs  be  forcibly  severed 
from  her,  death  shall  ensue,  unless  that  limb  shall  be  re-united  to  the 
parent  trunk.  With  such  a  people,  not  like  you,  as  you  fondly,  and 
I  fear,  vainly  boast  yourselves,  a  highly-civilized,  reasoning,  and 
philosophical  race,  but  a  people  who  upon  the  fierce  barbarism  of 
the  old  age  have  ingrafted  the  holy  sentiments  of  patriotism  of  a 
later  birth ;  with  just  such  a  people,  the  pride  of  independence  and 
the  love  of  country  combine  to  inflame  and  sublimate  patriotic 
attachment  into  a  feeling  dearer  than  life — stronger  than  death. 

What  were  the  sentiments  of  such  a  people  toward  us  when 
they  learned  that,  at  the  battle  of  San  Jacinto,  there  were  only  sev 
enty-five  men  of  their  own  country  out  of  the  seven  hundred  and 
fifty  who  conquered  them  on  that  day,  and  that  every  other  man  of 
that  conquering  army  who  fought  that  battle,  and  dismembered  their 
republic  of  one-fourth  part  of  its  territory,  had  but  recently  gone 
there  from  this  country,  was  fed  by  our  people,  and  armed  and 
equipped  in  the  United  Stated  to  do  that  very  deed. 

I  do  not  say  that  Mexico  had  a  right  to  make  war  upon  us  be 
cause  our  citizens  chose  to  seek  their  fortunes  in  the  fields  of  Texas. 
I  do  not  say  she  had  a  right  to  treat  you  as  a  bellgerent  power  be 
cause  you  permitted  your  citizens  to  march  in  battalions  and  regiments 
from  your  shores,  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  insurrectionary  war  in 
Texas — but  I  was  not  alone  at  the  time  in  expressing  my  astonish- 
20 


290  SPEECHES   OF   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

ment  that  all  this  did  not  work  an  open  rupture  between  the  two 
Republics  at  that  time.  We  all  remember  your  proclamations  of 
neutrality — we  know  that  in  defiance  of  these,  your  citizens  armed 
themselves  and  engaged  in  the  Texan  revolt;  and  it  is  true  that 
without  such  aid  Texas  would  this  day  have  been,  as  she  then  was, 
an  integral  portion  of  the  Mexican  republic.  Sir,  Mexicans  knew 
this  then,  they  knew  it  when,  seven  years  after,  you  coolly  took 
this  province  under  your  protection  and  made  it  your  own.  Do  you 
wonder,  therefore,  after  all  this,  that  when  Texas  did  thus  forcibly 
pass  away  from  them  and  come  to  us,  that  prejudice  amounting  to 
hate,  resentment  implacable  as  revenge  toward  us,  should  seize  and 
possess  and  madden  the  entire  population  of  a  country  thus  weak 
ened,  humbled,  contemned? 

Mr.  President,  how  would  the  fire  of  indignation  have  burned 
\m  every  bosom  here  if  the  government  of  Canada,  with  the  conniv 
ance  of  the  Crown  of  England,  had  permitted  its  people  to  arm 
themselves,  or  it  might  be,  had  allowed  its  regiments  of  trained 
mercenary  troops  stationed  there  to  invade  New  York  and  excite  her 
to  revolt,  telling  them  that  the  Crown  of  England  was  the  natural 
and  paternal  ruler  of  any  people  desiring  to  be  free  and  happy — 
that  your  Government  was  weak,  factious,  oppressive — that  man 
withered  under  its  baleful  influence — that  your  stars  and  stripes  were 
only  emblems  of  degradation  and  symbols  of  faction — that  England's 
lion,  rampant  on  his  field  of  gold,  was  the  appropriate  emblem  of 
power  and  symbol  of  national  glory — and  they  succeeded  in  alienat 
ing  the  weak  or  wicked  of  your  people  from  you — should  we  not 
then  have  waged  exterminating  war  upon  England,  in  every  quar 
ter  of  the  globe,  where  her  people  were  to  be  found? 

If,  sir,  I  say,  old  mother  England  had  sent  her  children  forward 
to  you  with  such  a  purpose  and  message  as  that,  and  had  severed 
the  State  of  New  York  from  you,  and  then,  for  some  difficulty  about 
the  boundary  along  between  it  and  Pennsylvania  and  New  Jersey, 
running  up  some  little  tide  creek  here,  and  going  off  a  little  degree 
or  two  there,  should  have  said,  "We  have  a  dispute  about  this 
boundary ;  we  have  some  forty  thousand  regular  troops  planted  upon 
the  boundary,  and  I  wish  you  to  understand  that  I  am  very  strong 
— that  I  have  not  only  thirty  millions  of  people  upon  the  soil  of 
Great  Britain  that  own  my  sovereign  sway,  but  away  upon  the  other 
side  of  the  globe,  right  under  you,  there  the  lion  of  England  com 
mands  the  obedience  of  a  hundred  and  twenty  millions  more.  It 


ON    THE    MEXICAN    WAR.  291 

becomes  you,  straggling  Democrats,  here  in  this  new  world,  to  be  a 
little  careful  how  you  treat  me.  You  are  not  Celts  exactly — nor  are 
you  quite  Anglo  Saxons ;  but  you  are  a  degenerate,  an  alien,  a  sort 
of  bastard  race.  I  have  taken  your  New  York ;  I  will  have  your 
Massachusetts."  And  all  this  is  submitted  to  the  American  Senate, 
and  we  are  gravely  discussing  what  ought  to  be  done.  Would  we 
be  likely  to  ratify  a  treaty  between  New  York  and  the  Crown  of 
England,  permitting  New  York  to  become  a  part  of  the  colonial 
possessions  of  England? 

I  should  like  to  hear  my  colleague  [MR.  ALLEN]  speak  on  such 
a  question  as  that.  I  should  like  to  hear  the  voice  of  this  Democrat 
that  you  talk  about,  called  upon  to  utter  its  tones  on  a  question  like 
that.  If  he  who  last  year  was  so  pained  lest  an  American  citizen 
away — God  knows  where !  in  some  latitude  beyond  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  should  be  obedient  to  British  laws — if  he  whose  patriotic 
and  Republican  apprehension  was  so  painfully  excited  lest  the  right 
of  habeas  corptts  and  trial  by  jury,  which  every  Englishman  carries  in 
his  pocket  wherever  he  goes,  should  be  made  to  bear  upon  an  Amer 
ican  citizen — were  called  upon  to  speak  upon  such  a  proposition  as 
that  which  I  have  supposed,  I  should  certainly  like  to  hear  how  he 
would  treat  it.  Yet,  the  question  being  reversed,  that  is  precisely 
the  condition  in  which  Mexico  stood  toward  you  after  San  Jacinto 
was  fought,  and  on  the  day  Texas  was  annexed. 

Your  people  did  go  to  Texas.  I  remember  it  well.  They 
went  to  Texas  to  fight  for  their  rights.  They  could  not  fight  for 
them  in  their  own  country.  Well,  they  fought  for  their  rights. 
They  conquered  them!  They  "conquered  a  peace!"  They  were _ 
your  citizens — not  Mexicans.  They  were  recent  emigrants  to  that 
country.  They  went  there  for  the  very  purpose  of  seizing  on  that 
country  and  making  it  a  free  and  independent  republic,  with  a  view, 
as  some  of  them  said,  of  bringing  it  into  the  American  Confederacy 
in  due  time.  Is  this  poor  Celtic  brother  of  yours  in  Mexico — is  the 
Mexican  man  sunk  so  low  that  he  cannot  hear  what  fills  the  mouth 
and  ear  of  rumor  all  over  this  country  ?  He  knows  that  this  was  the 
settled  purpose  of  some  of  your  people.  He  knows  that  your  ava 
rice  had  fixed  its  eagle  glance  on  these  rich  acres  in  Mexico,  and  that 
your  proud  power  counted  the  number  that  could  be  brought  against 
you,  and  that  your  avarice  and  your  power  together  marched  on  to 
the  subjugation  of  the  third  or  fourth  part  of  the  Republic  of  Mex 
ico,  and  took  it  from  her.  We  knew  this,  and  knowing  it,  what 


292  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

should  have  been  the  feeling  and  sentiment  in  the  mind  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States  toward  such  a  people — a  people  at 
least  in  their  own  opinion  so  deeply  injured  by  us  as  were  these 
Mexicans. 

The  Republic  of  Texas  conies  under  the  Government  of  the 
United  States,  and  it  happens  that  the  minister  resident  at  your  court 
— and  it  is  a  pretty  respectable  court,  Mr.  President, — we  have 
something  of  a  king — not  for  life,  it  is  true,  but  a  quadrennial  sort 
of  a  monarch,  who  does  very  much  as  he  pleases — the  minister  resi 
dent  at  that  court  of  yours  stated  at  the  time  that  this  revolted 
province  of  Texas  was  claimed  by  Mexico,  and  that  if  you  received 
it  as  one  of  the  sovereign  States  of  this  Union,  right  or  wrong,  it 
was  impossible  to  reason  with  his  people  about  it — they  would  con 
sider  it  as  an  act  of  hostility.  Did  you  consult  the  national  feeling 
of  Mexico  then? 

The  President  has  now  to  deal  with  a  people  thus  humbled,  thus 
irritated.  It  was  his  duty  to  concede  much  to  Mexico ;  everything 
but  his  country's  honor  or  her  rights.  Was  this  done?  Not  at  all! 
Mexico  and  her  minister  were  alike  spurned  as  weak  and  trivial 
things,  whose  complaints  you  would  not  hear  or  heed ;  and  when  she 
humbly  implored  you  not  to  take  this  province — declared  that  it 
might  disturb  the  peace  subsisting  between  us — you  wrere  still  inex 
orable.  During  this  time,  she  was  forcing  loans  from  her  citizens  to 
pay  the  debt  she  owed  yours,  fulfilling  her  treaties  with  you  by  pain 
ful  exactions  from  her  own  people.  She  begged  of  you  to  let  Texas 
alone.  If  she  were  independent,  let  her  enjoy  her  independence ;  if 
free,  let  her  revel  in  her  new-born  liberty,  in  defiance  of  Mexico,  as 
she  alleged  she  would  and  could.  Your  stern  reply  was,  No !  we 
will,  at  your  expense,  strengthen  our  own  arm,  by  uniting  to  our 
selves  that  which  has  been  severed  from  you  by  our  citizens ;  we  will 
take  Texas;  we  will  throw  the  shield  of  our  Constitution  over  her 
rights,  and  the  sword  of  our  power  shall  gleam  like  that  at  Eden, 
"turning  every  way,"  to  guard  her  against  further  attack. 

Her  minister,  his  remonstrance  failing,  leaves  you.  He  tells 
you  that  he  cannot  remain,  because  you  had  created,  by  this  act, 
hostile  relations  with  his  government.  At  last  you  are  informed  that 
Mexico  will  receive  a  commission  to  treat  of  this  Texan  boundary, 
if  you  will  condescend  to  negotiate.  Instead  of  sending  a  commis 
sioner  to  treat  of  t/iat,  the  only  difficult  question  between  the  two 
Republics,  you  send  a  full  minister,  and  require  that  he  shall  be 


ON    THE    MEXICAN    WAR.  293 

received  as  such.  If  he  could  not  be  styled  Minister  Plenipotentiary 
and  so  accredited,  why  then  we  must  fight,  and  not  negotiate  for  a 
boundary.  The  then  Mexican  president,  the  representative  of  some 
faction  then  only,  was  tottering  to  his  fall.  His  minister  besought 
Mr.  Slidell  not  to"press~~Kis  reception  then.  He  was  told  that  the 
excited  feelings  of  the  Mexican  people  were  such  that  he  must  delay 
for  a  time.  To  this  petition  what  answer  is  returned?  You  shall 
receive  me  now ;  you  shall  receive  me  as  minister,  and  not  as  com 
missioner  ;  you  shall  receive  me  as  though  the  most  pacific  relations 
existed  between  the  two  countries.  Tints,  and  not  otherwise,  shall  it 
be.  Such  was  the  haughty,  imperious  tone  of  Mr.  Slidell,  and  he 
acted  up  only  to  the  spirit  of  his  instructions.  Let  any  one  peruse 
the  correspondence  I  have  referred  to.  and  he  will  see  that  I  have 
truly  represented  its  spirit,  be  its  letter  what  it  may.  This  is  done 
under  the  instructions  of  a  cabinet  here,  who  represented  themselves 
in  our  public  documents,  as  sighing,  panting  for  peace ;  as  desiring, 
above  all  things,  to  treat  these  distracted,  contemned  Mexicans  in 
such  a  way,  that  not  the  shadow  of  a  complaint  against  us  shall  be 
seen.  From  this  correspondence  it  is  perfectly  clear,  that  if  Mr. 
Slidell  had  been  sent  in  the  less  ostentatious  character  of  commis 
sioner,  to  treat  of  the  Texan  boundary,  that  treaties  and  not  bullets 
would  have  adjusted  the  question.  But  this  was  not  agreeable  to  the 
lofty  conceptions  of  the  President.  He  preferred  a  vigorous  war  to 
the  tame  process  of  peaceful  adjustment.  He  now  throws  down  the  '.' 
pen  of  the  diplomat,  and  grasps  the  sword  of  the  warrior.  Your  ^ 
army,  with  brave  old  "Rough  and  Ready"  at  its  head,  is  ordered  to 
pass  the  Nueces,  and  advance  to  the  east  bank  of  the  Rio  Grande. 
There,  sir,  between  these  two  rivers,  lies  that  slip  of  territory,  that 
chapparal  thicket,  interspersed  with  Mexican  haciendas,  out  of  which 
this  wasteful,  desolating  war  arose.  Was  this  territory  beyond  the 
river  Nueces  in  the  State  of  Texas? 

Now  I  have  said,  that  I  would  not  state  any  disputable  fact.  It 
is  known  to  every  man  who  has  looked  into  this  subject,  that  a  revo 
lutionary  government  can  claim  no  jurisdiction  anywhere  when  it  has 
not  defined  and  exercised  its  power  with  the  sword.  It  was  utterly 
indifferent^  to  Mexico  and  the  world  what  legislative  enactments 
Texas-made.  She  extended  her  revolutionary  government  and  her 
revolutionary  dominion  not  one  inch  beyond  the  extent  to  which  she 
had  carried  the  power  of  Texas  in  opposition  to  the  power  of 
Mexico. 


294  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

It  is  therefore  a  mere  question  of  fact;  and  how  will  it  be 
pretended  that  that  country,  lying  between  the  Nueces  and  the  Del 
Norte,  to  which  your  army  was  ordered,  and  of  which  it  took  pos 
session,  was  subject  to  Texan  law  and  not  Mexican  law?  What  did 
your  general  find  there?  What  did  he  write  home?  Do  you  hear 
of  any  trial  by  jury  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Rio  Grande — of  Anglo 
Saxons  making  cotton  there  with  their  negroes  ?  No  !  You  hear  of 
Mexicans  residing  peacefully  there,  but  fleeing  from  their  cotton- 
fields  at  the  approach  of  your  army — no  slaves,  for  it  had  been  a 
decree  of  the  Mexican  government,  years  ago,  that  no  slaves  should 
exist  there.  If  there  were  a  Texan  population  on  the  east  bank  of 
the  Rio  Grande,  why  did  not  General  Taylor  hear  something  of 
those  Texans  hailing  the  advent  of  the  American  army,  coming  to 
protect  them  from  the  ravages  of  the  Mexicans,  and  the  more  mur 
derous  onslaughts  of  the  neighboring  savages? 

Do  you  hear  anything  of  that  ?  No !  On  the  contrary,  the 
population  fled  at  the  approach  of  your  army.  In  God's  name,  I 
wish  to  know  if  it  has  come  to  this,  that  when  an  American  army 
goes  to  protect  American  citizens  on  American  territory,  they  flee 
from  it  as  if  from  the  most  barbarous  enemy  ?  Yet  such  is  the  ridic 
ulous  assumption  of  those  who  pretend  that,  on  the  east  bank  of  the 
Rio  Grande,  where  your  arms  took  possession,  there  were  Texan 
population,  Texan  power,  Texan  laws,  and  American  United  States 
power  and  law!  No,  Mr.  President,  when  I  see  that  stated  in  an 
Executive  document,  written  by  the  finger  of  a  President  of  the 
United  States,  and  when  you  read  in  those  documents,  with  which 
/A.  your  tables  groan,  the  veracious  account  of  that  noble  old  General 
Taylor,  of  his  reception  in  that  country,  and  of  those  men — to  use 
the  language  of  one  of  his  officers — fleeing  before  the  invaders; 
when  you  compare  these  two  documents  together,  is  it  not  a  biting 
j  sarcasm  upon  the  sincerity  of  public  men — a  bitter  satire  upon  the 
gravity  of  all  public  affairs  ? 

/,,      \  \         -"— -      _     T, -     i  ~*     ^' 

Can  it  be,  Mr.  President,  that  the  honest,  generous,  Christian 
people  of  the  United  States  will  give  contenance  to  this  egregious, 
palpable  misrepresentation  of  fact — this  bold  falsification  of  history? 
Shall  it  be  written  down  in  your  public  annals,  when  the  world  look 
ing  on  and  you  yourselves  know,  that  Mexico,  and,  not  Texas,  pos 
sessed  this  territory  to  which  your  armies  marched?  As  Mexico 
had  never  been  dispossessed  by  Texan  power,  neither  Texas  nor 
your  Government  had  any  more  claim  to  it  than  you  now  have  to 


ON    THE    MEXICAN    WAR.  295 

California,    that    other  possession   of  Mexico  over  which    your   all- 
gr£spTiig  'avajjce  has  already  extended  its  remorseless  dominion. 

Mr.  President,  there  is  absent  to-day  a  Senator  from  the  other 
side  of  the  House  whose  presence  would  afford  me,  as  it  always 
does,  but  particularly  on  this  occasion,  a  most  singular  gratification. 
I  allude  to  the  Senator  from  Missouri  who  sits  furthest  from  me 
(MR.  BENTON).  I  remember,  Mr.  President,  he  arose  in  this  body 
and  performed  a  great  act  of  justice  to  himself  and  to  his  country — 
of  justice  to  mankind,  for  all  men  are  interested  in  the  truths  of  his 
tory — when  he  declared  it  to  be '  his  purpose,  for  the  sake  of  the 
truth  of  history,  to  set  right  some  gentlemen,  on  the  other  side  of 
the  House,  in  respect  to  the  territory  of  Oregon,  which  then  threat 
ened  to  disturb  the  peace  of  this  Republic  with  the  kingdom  of 
Great  Britain.  I  wish  it  had  pleased  him  to  have  performed  the 
same  good  offices  on  this  occasion. 

I  wish  it  had  been  so,  if  he  could  have  found  it  consonant  with 
his  duty  to  his  country,  that  now,  while  engaged  with  an  enemy 
whom  we  have  no  reason  to  fear,  as  being  ever  able  to  check  our 
progress  or  disturb  our  internal  peace,  for  the  sake  of  justice,  as 
then  he  did  for  the  sake  of  justice  and  the  interest  and  peace  of  those 
two  countries,  England  and  America,  he  had  come  forward  to  settle 
the  truth  of  history  in  respect  to  the  territorial  boundary  of  Texas, 
which  our  President  said  was  the  Rio  Bravo — the  "Rio  del  Norte," 
as  it  is  sometimes  called.  I  express  this  wish  for  no  purpose  of 
taunting  the  Senator  from  Missouri,  or  leading  him  to  believe  that  I 
would  draw  his  name  into  the  discussion  for  any  other  than  the  most 
sacred  purposes  which  can  animate  the  human  bosom — that  of  hav 
ing  truth  established ;  for  I  really  believe  that  that  is  truth  which  the 
Senator  from  Michigan  stated  yesterday,  that  the  worst  said  in  the 
Senate  is,  that  much  might  be  said  on  both  sides.  I  cannot  view  it 
in  that  way.  Much  may  be  said,  much  talk  may  be  had  on  both 
sides  on  any  question,  but  that  this  is  a  disputable  matter  about 
which  a  man  could  apply  his  mind  for  an  hour  and  still  be  in  doubt, 
is  to  me  an  inscrutable  mystery. 

I  wish  to  invoke  the  authority  of  the  Senator  from  Missouri. 
When  about  to  receive  Texas  into  the  United  States  he  offered  a 
resolution  to  this  effect : 

"That  the. incorporation  of  the  left  bank  of  the  Rio  del  Norte  (Rio  Grande)  into 
the  American  Union,  by  virtue  of  a  treaty  with  Texas,  comprehending,  as  the  said  in 
corporation  would  do,  a  part  of  the  Mexican  departments  of  New  Mexico,  Chihuahua, 


296  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

Coahuila  and  Tamaulipas,  WOULD   BE  AN  ACT  OF  DIRECT  AGGRESSION   ON 
MEXICO,  for  all  the  consequences  of  which  the  United  States  would  stand  responsible." 

I  beg,  Mr.  President,  to  add  to  this  another  authority  which  I 
am  sure  will  not  be  contradicted  by  any  calling  themselves  Democrats. 
In  the  summer  of  1844,  Mr.  Silas  Wright,  in  an  elaborate  address 
delivered  at  Watertown,  N.  Y.,  said: 

"  There  is  another  subject  on  which  I  feel  bound  to  speak  a  word ;  I  allude  to  the 
proposition  to  annex  Texas  to  the  territory  of  this  republic.  I  felt  it  my  duty  to  vote 
as  Senator,  and  did  vote  against  the  ratification  of  the  treaty  for  the  annexation.  I 
believed  that  the  treaty,  from  the  boundaries  that  must  be  implied  from  it,  if  Mexico 
would  not  treat  with  us,  embraced  a  country  to  which  Texas  had  no  claim — over  which 
she  hadjigver  asserted  jurisdiction,  and  which  she  had  no  right  to  cede.  On  this  point 
I  should  give  a  brief  explanation. 

"  The  treaty  ceded  Texas  by  name  without  an  effort  to  describe  a  boundary.  The 
Congress  of  Texas  had  passed  an  act  declaring,  by  metes  and  bounds,  what  was  Texas 
within  their  power  and  jurisdiction.  It  appeared  to  me  then,  if  Mexico  should  tell  us, 
'  We  don't  know  you,  we  have  no  treaty  to  make  with  you,'  and  we  were  left  to  take 
possession  by  force,  we  must  take  the  country  as  Texas  had  ceded  it  to  us;  and  in  doing 
that,  or  forfeiting  our  own  honor,  we  must  do  injustice  to  Mexico,  and  take  a  large 
portion  of  New  Mexico,  the  people  of  which  have  never  been  under  the  jurisdiction  of 
Texas ;  this,  to  me,  was  an  insurmountable  barrier — I  could  not  place  the  country  in 
that  position." 

How  did  your  officers  consider  this  question?  While  in  camp 
opposite  to  Matamoras,  being  then  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rio 
Grande,  between  the  latter  river  and  the  Nueces,  a  most  respectable 
officer  writes  thus  to  his  friend  in  New  York : 

"CAMP  OPPOSITE  MATAMORAS,  April  19,  1846. 

"Our  situation  here  is  an  extraordinary  one.  Right  in  the  enemy's  country, 
actually  occupying  their  corn  and  cotton-fields,  the  people  of  the  soil  leaving  their 
homes,  and  we,  with  a  small  handful  of  men,  marching,  with  colors  flying  and  drums 
beating,  right  under  the  guns  of  one  of  their  principal  cities,  displaying  the  star- 
spangled  banner,  as  if  in  defiance,  under  their  very  nose,  and  they,  with  an  army  twice 
our  size  at  least,  sit  quietly  down,  and  make  not  the  least  resistance,  not  the  first  effort 
to  drive  the  invaders  off.  There  is  no  parallel  to  it." 

Sir,  did  this  officer  consider  himself  in  Texas?  Were  they  our 
own  Texan  citizens,  who,  in  the  language  of  the  letter,  "did  not 
make  the  first  effort  to  drive  the  invaders  off?"  If  it  had  been  Texas 
there,  would  that  State  consider  it  invasion,  or  her  people  fly  from 
your  standard?  "  The  people  of  the  soil  leaving  their  homes!"  Who 
were  those  "people  of  the  soil  T'  Sir,  they  were  Mexicans,  never  con 
quered  by  Texas,  and  never  subject  to  her  laws,  and  therefore  never 
transferred  by  annexation  to  your  dominion ;  and  therefore,  lastly, 
your  army,  by  order  of  the  President,  without  the  consent  or  advice 


ON    THE    MEXICAN    WAR.  297 

of  Congress,    made  war  on  Mexico,   by.  invading  her  territory,   in 


Mr.  President,  the  Senator  from  Missouri  was  right.  V  The  in 
corporation  of  the  left  bank  of  the  Rio  Grande  into  the  American 
Union/'  was  "an  act  of  direct  aggression  on  Mexico,"  as  his  resolu- 
tion  most  truthfully  alleged.  We,  or  at  least  the  President,  has  at 
tempted  to  incorporate  the  left  bank  of  the  Rio  del  Norte,  or  the  Rio 
Grande,  into  the  Union,  and  the  consequence,  the  legitimate  conse 
quence,  war,  has  come  upon  us.  The  President,  in  his  message,  as 
serts  the  boundary  of  Texas  to  be  the  Rio  Grande.  The  Senator 
from  Missouri  asserts  the  left  bank  of  that  river  to  be  Mexican  terri 
tory.  Sir,  it  is  not  for  me,  who  stand  here  an  humble  man,  who 
pretend  not  to  be  one  of  those  Pharisees  who  know  all  the  law  and 
obey  it,  but  who,  like  the  poor  publican,  would  stand  afar  off  and 
smite  my  breast,  and  say  God  be  merciful  to  me,  a  poor  Whig. 
When  the  anointed  high-priests  in  the  Temple  of  Democracy  differ  on  V^ 
a  point  of  fact,  it  is  not  for  me  to  decide  between  them.  Is  it  for  me 
to  say  that  the  Senator  from  Missouri  was  ignorant  and  the  President 
omniscient?  Is  it  for  me  to  say  that  the  President  was  right  and  the 
Senator  from  Missouri  wrong?  If  it  were  true  that  Texan  laws  had 
been,  since  1836,  as  the  President's  action  seems  to  declare,  how 
happened  it  that  when  General  Taylor  went  to  Point  Isabel,  the  peo 
ple  set  fire  to  their  houses  and  fled  the  place  ?  And  how  did  it  hap 
pen  that  there  was  a  custom-house  there,  there,  in  Texas,  as  you  now 
allege?  A  Mexican  custom-house  in  Texas,  \vhere,  ever  since  1836, 
and  for  one  whole  year  after  the  State  of  Texas  became  yours,  a 
Mexican  officer  collected  taxes  of  all  who  traded  there,  and  paid 
these  duties  into  the  Mexican  treasury!  Sir,  is  it  credible  that  this 
State  of  Texas  allowed  Mexican  laws  and  Mexican  power  to  exist 
within  her  borders  for  seven  years  after  her  independence  ?  I  should 
think  a  people  so  prompt  to  fight  for  their  rights  might  have  burned 
some  powder  for  the  expulsion  of  Mexican  usurpers  from  Texan  ter 
ritory.  Sir,  the  history  of  this  country  is  full  of  anomalies  and  con 
tradictions.  What  a  patriotic,  harmonious  people!  When  Taylor 
comes  to  protect  them  they  fire  their  dwellings  and  fly  !  When  you 
come  in  peace,  bristling  in  arms  for  protection  only  —  your  eagle 
spreading  its  wings  to  shield  from  harm  all  American  citizens  —  what 
then  happens?  Why,  according  to  your  own  account,  these  Anglo- 
Saxon  republicans  are  so  terrified  at  the  sight  of  their  country's  flag, 
that  they  abandon  their  homes,  and  retreat  before  your  army,  as  if 


298  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

sonie  Nomad  tribe  had  wandered  thither  to  enslave  their  families  and 
plunder  their  estates ! 

All  this  mass  of  undeniable  fact,  known  even  to  the  careless 
reader  of  the  public  prints,  is  so  utterly  at  war  with  the  studiously- 
contrived  statements  in  your  cabinet  documents,  that  I  do  not  won 
der  at  all  that  an  amiable  national  pride,  however  misplaced  here, 
has  prevented  hitherto  a  thorough  and  fearless  investigation  of  their 
truth.  Nor,  sir,  would  I  probe  this  feculent  mass  of  misrepresenta 
tion,  had  I  not  been  compelled  to  it  in  defense  of  votes  which  I  was 
obliged  to  record  here,  within  the  last  ten  days.  Sir,  with  my  opin 
ions  as  to  facts  connected  with  this  subject,  and  my  deductions,  un 
avoidable,  from  them,  I  should  have  been  unworthy  the  high-souled 
State  I  represent,  had  I  voted  men  and  money  to  prosecute  further 
a  war  commenced,  as  it  now  appears,  in  aggression,  and  carried  on 
by  repetition  only  of  the  original  wrong.  Am  I  mistaken  in  this? 
If  I  am,  I  shall  hold  him  the  dearest  friend  I  can  own,  in  any  relation 
of  life,  who  shall  show  me  my  error.  If  I  am  wrong  in  this  ques 
tion  of  fact,  show  me  how  I  err,  and  gladly  will  I  retrace  my  steps ; 
satisfy  me  that  my  country  was  in  peaceful  and  rightful  possession 
between  the  Nueces  and  Rio  Grande  when  General  Taylor's  army 
was  ordered  there;  show  me  that  at  Palo  Alto  and  Resaca  de  las 
Palmas  blood  was  shed  on  American  soil  in  American  possession, 
and  then,  for  the  defense  of  that  possession,  I  will  vote  away  the  last 
dollar  that  power  can  wring  from  the  people,  and  send  every  man 
able  to  bear  a  musket  to  the  ranks  of  war.  But  until  I  shall  be  thus 
convinced,  djii}L_tQ^xself^Qj£ll^  to  public  justice, 

requires  that  I  persist  in  every  lawful  ojpgosition  to  this  war. 

While  the  American  President  can  command  the  army,  thank 
Heaven  I  can  command  the  purse.  While  the  President,  under  the 
penalty  of  death,  can  command  your  officers  to  proceed,  I  can  tell 
them  to  come  back,  or  the  President  can  supply  them  as  he  may. 
He  shall  have  no  funds  from  me  in  the  prosecution  of  a  war  which  I 
cannot  approve.  That  I  conceive  to  be  the  duty  of  a  Senator.  I 
am  not  mistaken  in  that.  If  it  be  my  duty  to  grant  whatever  the 
President  demands,  for  what  am  I  here  ?  Have  I  no  will  upon  the 
subject?  Is  it  not  placed  at  my  discretion,  understanding,  judg 
ment?  Have  an  American  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives 
nothing  to  do  but  obey  the  bidding  of  the  President,  as  the  army  he 
commands  is  compelled  to  obey  under  penalty  of  death  ?  No !  The 


ON    THE    MEXICAN    WAR.  299 

representatives  of  the  sovereign  people  and  sovereign  States  were 
never  elected  for  such  purposes  as  that. 

Have  Senators  reflected  on  the  great  power  which  the  command 
of  armies  in  war  confers  upon  any  one,  but  especially  on  him  who  is 
at  once  the  civil  and  military  chief  of  the  government?  It  is  very 
well  that  we  should  look  back  to  see  how  the  friends  of  popular 
rights  regarded  this  subject  in  former  times.  Prior  to  the  revolution 
of  1688,  in  England,  all  grants  of  money  by  Parliament  were  gen-  >  • 
eral.  Specific  appropriations  before  that  period  were  unknown. 
The  king  could,  out  of  the  general  revenues,  appropriate  any  or  all 
of  them  to  any  war  or  other  object,  as  best  suited  his  own  unre 
strained  wishes.  Hence,  in  the  last  struggle  with  the  first  Charles, 
the  Parliament  insisted  that  he  should  yield  up  the  command  of  the 
army  raised  to  quell  the  Irish  rebellion  to  such  person  as  Parliament 
should  choose.  The  men  of  that  day  saw  that  with  the  unrestricted 
control  of  revenue,  and  the  power  to  name  the  commander  of  the 
army,  the  king  was  master  of  the  liberties  of  the  people.  Where 
fore  Charles,  after  he  had  yielded  up  almost  every  other  kingly  pre 
rogative,  was  (in  order  to  secure  Parliament  and  the  people  against 
military  rule )  required  to  give  up  the  command  of  the  forces.  It  was 
his  refusal  to  do  this  that  brought  his  head  to  the  block.  "Give  up 
the  command  of  the  army !"  was  the  last  imperative  demand  of  the 
foes  of  arbitrary  power  then.  What  was  the  reply  of  that  unhappy 
representative  of  the  doomed  race  of  the  Stuarts?  "Not  for  an  hour, 
by  God !"  was  the  stern  answer.  Went  worth  had  always  advised  his 
royal  master  never  to  yield  up  the  right  to  command  the  army ;  such, 
too,  was__the  counsel  of  the  queen,  whose  notions  of  kingly  power 
were  all  fashioned  after  the  most  despotic  models.  This  power  over 
the  army  by  our  Constitution  is  conceded  to  our  king.  Give  him 
money  at  his  will,  as  we  are  told  we  must,  and  you  have  set  up  in 
this  Republic  just  such  a  tyrant  as  him  against  whom  the  friends  of 
English  liberty  were  compelled  to  wage  war.  It  was  a  hard  neces 
sity,  but  still  it  was  demanded  as  the  only  security  for  any  reasona 
ble  measure  of  public  liberty.  Such  men  as  Holt  and  Somers  had 
not  yet  taught  the  people  of  England  the  secret  of  controlling  arbi 
trary  power  by  specific  appropriations  of  money,  and  withholding 
these,  when  the  king  proclaimed  his  intention  to  use  the  grant  for 
any  purpose  not  approved  by  the  Commons,  the  true  representatives 
of  popular  rights  in  England. 

When,  in  1688,  this  doctrine  of  specific  appropriations  became 


300  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

a  part  of  the  British  constitution,  the  King  could  safely  be  trusted 
with  the  control  of  the  army.  If  war  is  made  there  by  the  Crown, 
and  the  Commons  do  not  approve  of  it,  refusal  to  grant  supplies  is 
the  easy  remedy — one,  too,  which  renders  it  impossible  for  a  king  of 
England  to  carry  forward  any  war  which  may  be  displeasing  to  the 
English  people.  Yes,  sir,  in  England,  since  1688,  it  has  not  been 
in  the  power  of  a  British  sovereign  to  do  that,  which  in  your  boasted 
Republic,  an  American  president,  under  the  auspices  of  what  you 
call  Democracy,  has  done — make  war,  without  consent  of  the  legis 
lative  power.  In  England,  supplies  are  at  once  refused,  if  Parlia 
ment  does  not  approve  the  objects  of  the  war.  Here,.,  we  are  told, 
we  must  not  look  to  the  objects  of  the  war,  being  in  the  war — made 
by  the  President — we  must  help  him  to  fight  it  out,  should  it  even 
please  him  to  carry  it  to  the  utter  extermination  of  the  Mexican 
race.  Sir,  I  believe  it  must  proceed  to  this  shocking  extreme,  if 
you  are,  by  war,  to  "conquer  a  peace."  Here,  then,  is  your  condi 
tion.  The  President  involves  you  in  war  without  your  consent. 
Being  in  such  a  war,  it  is  demanded  as  a  duty,  that  we  grant  men 
and  money  to  carry  it  on.  The  President  tells  us  he  shall  prosecute 
this  war,  till  Mexico  pays  us,  or  agrees  to  pay  us,  all  its  expenses. 
I  am  not  willing  to  scourge  Mexico  thus ;  and  the  only  means  left  me 
is  to  say  to  the  commander-in-chief,  "Call  home  your  army,  I  will 
feed  and  clothe  it  no  longer;  you  have  whipped  Mexico  into  three 
pitched  battles,  this  is  revenge  enough;  this  is  punishment  enough." 
The  President  has  said  he  does  not  expect  to  hold  Mexican  ter 
ritory  by  conquest.  Why  then  conquer  it?  Why  waste  thousands 
of  lives  and  millions  of  money  fortifying  towns  and  creating  govern 
ments,  if,  at  the  end  of  the  war,  you  retire  from  the  graves  of  your 
soldiers  and  the  desolated  country  of  your  foes,  only  to  get  money 
from  Mexico  for  the  expense  of  all  your  toil  and  sacrifice?  Who 
ever  heard,  since  Christianity  was  propagated  among  men,  of  a 
nation  taxing  its  people,  enlisting  its  young  men  and  marching  off 
two  thousand  miles  to  fight  a  people  merely  to  be  paid  for  it  in 

<  money?  What  is  this  but  hunting  a  market  for  blood,  selling  the 
lives  of  your  young  men,  marching  them  in  regiments  to  be  slaugh 
tered  and  paid  for,  like  oxen  and  brute  beasts?  Sir,  this  is,  when 
stripped  naked,  that  atrocious  idea  first  promulgated  in  the  Presi 
dent's  message,  and  now  advocated  here,  of  fighting  on  till  we  can 
get  our  indemnity  for  the  past  as  well  as  the  present  slaughter.  We 
have  chastised  Mexico,  and  if  it  were  worth  while  to  do  so,  we  have, 


ON    THE    MEXICAN    WAR.  301 

I  dare  say,  satisfied  the  world  that  we  can  fight.  What  now?  Why 
the  mothers  of  America  are  asked  to  send  another  of  their  sons  to 
blow  out  the  brains  of  Mexicans  because  they  refuse  to  pay  the  price 
of  the  first  who  fell  there,  fighting  for  glory  !  And  what  if  the  sec 
ond  fall,  too?  The  Executive,  the  parental  reply,  is,  "we  shall  have 
him  paid  for,  we  shall  get  full  indemnity!"  Sir,  I  have  no  patience 
with  this  flagitious  notion  of  fighting  for  indemnity,  and  this  under 
the  equally  absurd  and  hypocritical  pretense  of  securing  an  honora 
ble  peace.  An  honorable  peace  !  If  you  have  accomplished  the 
objects  of  the  war  (  if  indeed  you  had  an  object  which  you  dare  to 
avow),  cease  to  fight,  and  you  will  have  peace.  Conquer  your 
insane  love  of  false  glory,  and  you  will  "conquer  a  peace."  Sir,  if 
your  commander-in-chief  will  not  do  this,  I  will  endeavor  to  compel 
him,  and  as  I  find  no  other  means,  I  shall  refuse  supplies  —  without 
the  money  of  the  people,  he  cannot  go  further.  He  asks  me  for 
that  money;  I  wish  him  to  bring  your  armies  home,  to  cease  shed 
ding  blood  for  money  ;  if  he  refuses,  I  will  refuse  supplies,  and  then 
I  know  he  must,  he  will  cease  his  further  sale  of  the  lives  of  my 
countrymen.  May  we  not,  ought  we  not  now  to  do  this?  I  can 
hear  no  reason  why  we  should  not,  except  this  :  It  is  said  that  we 
are  in  war,  wrongfully  it  may  be,  but,  being  in,  the  President  is 
responsible,  and  we  must  give  him  the  means  he  requires  !  He 
responsible  !  Sir,  we,  we  are  responsible,  if  having  the  power  to 
stay  this  plague,  we  refuse  to  do  so.  When  it  shall  be  so  —  when 
the  American  Senate  and  the  American  House  of  Representatives 
can  stoop  from  their  high  position,  and  yield  a  dumb  compliance 
with  the  behests  of  a  president  who  is,  for  the  time  being,  com 
mander  of  your  army;  when  they  will  open  the  treasury  with  one 
hand,  and  the  veins  of  all  the  soldiers  in  the  land  with  the  other, 
metely  because  the  President  commands,  then,  sir,  it  matters  little  how 
soon  some  Cromwell  shall  come  into  this  Hall  and  say,  "the  Lord 
hath  no  further  need  of  you  here."  When  we  fail  to  do  the  work, 
"  whereunto  we  were  sent,"  we  shall  be,  we  ought  to  be,  removed, 
and  give  place  to  others  who  will.  The  fate  of  the  barren  fig-tree 
will  be  ours  —  Christ  cursed  it  and  it  withered. 

Mr.  President,  I  dismiss  this  branch  of  the  subject,  and  beg  the 
indulgence  of  the  Senate  to  some  reflections  on  the  particular  bill 
now  under  consideration.  I  voted  for  a  bill  somewhat  like  the  pres 
ent  at  the  last  session  —  our  army  was  then  in  the  neighborhood  of 
our  line.  I  then  hoped  that  the  President  did  sincerely  desire  a 


"^ftS/ry 


r  .      cv 


302  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIX. 

peace.  Our  army  had  not  then  penetrated  far  into  Mexico  and  I 
did  hope  that  with  the  two  millions  then  proposed,  we  might  get 
peace,  and  avoid  the  slaughter,  the  shame,  the  crime,  of  an  aggress 
ive,  unprovoked  war.  But  now  you  have  overrun  half  of  Mexico, 
you  have  exasperated  and  irritated  her  people,  you  claim  indemnity 
for  all  expenses  incurred  in  doing  this  mischief,  and  boldly  ask  her 
to  give  up  New  Mexico  and  California ;  and,  as  a  bribe  to  her  patriot 
ism,  seizing  on  her  property,  you  offer  three  millions  to  pay  the  sol 
diers  she  has  called  out  to  repel  your  invasion,  on  condition  that  she 
will  give  up  to  you  at  least  one-third  of  her  whole  territory.  This  is 
the  modest — I  should  say,  the  monstrous — proposition  now  before 
us,  as  explained  by  the  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign 
Relations  [MR.  SEVIER],  who  reported  the  bill.  I  cannot  now  give 
my  assent  to  this. 

But,  sir,  I  do  not  believe  you  will  succeed.  I  am  not  informed 
of  your  prospects  of  success  with  this  measure  of  peace.  The 
Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Foreign  Relations  tells  us  that  he  has 
every  reason  to  believe  that  peace  can  be  obtained  if  we  grant  this 
appropriation.  What  reason  have  you,  Mr.  Chairman,  for  that  opin 
ion?  "Facts  which  I  cannot  disclose  to  you — correspondence  which 
it  would  be  improper  to  name  here — facts  which  I  know,  but  which 
you  are  not  permitted  to  know,  have  satisfied  the  committee,  that 
peace  may  be  purchased,  if  you  will  but  grant  these  three  millions 
of  dollars."  Now,  Mr.  President,  I  \vish  to  know  if  I  am  required 
,-f  to  act  upon  such  opinions  of  the  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Foreign  Relations,  formed  upon  facts  which  he  refuses  to  disclose  to 
me?  No!  I.  must  know  the  facts  before  I  can  form  my  judgment. 
But  I  am  to  take  it  for  granted  that  there  must  be  some  prospect  of 
an  end  to  this  dreadful  war — for  it  is  a  dreadful  war,  being,  as  I 
believe  in  my  conscience  it  is,  an  unjust  war.  Is  it  possible  that  for 
three  millions  you  can  purchase  a  peace  with  Mexico?  How?  By 
the  purchase  of  California?  Mr.  President,  I  know  not  what  facts 
the  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Affairs  may  have  had 
access  to.  I  know  not  what  secret  agents  have  been  whispering  into 
the  ears  of  the  authorities  of  Mexico ;  but  of  one  thing  I  am  certain 
that  by  a  cession  of  California  and  New  Mexico  you  never  can  pur 
chase  a  peace  with  her. 

You  may  wrest  provinces  from  Mexico  by  war — you  may  hold 
them  by  the  right  of  the  strongest — you  may  rob  her,  but  a  treaty 
of  peace  to  that  effect  with  the  people  of  Mexico,  legitimately  and 


ON    THE    MEXICAN    WAR.  303 

freely  made,  you  never  will  have !  I  thank  God  that  it  is  so,  as  well 
for  "the  sake  of  the  Mexican  people  as  ourselves,  for,  unlike  the  Sen 
ator  from  Alabama  [MR.  BAGBY],  I  do  not  value  the  life  of  a  citizen 
of  the  United  States  above  the  lives  of  a  hundred  thousand  Mexican 
women  and  children — a  rather  cold  sort  of  philanthropy,  in  my 
judgment.  For  the  sake  of  Mexico  then,  as  well  as  our  own  coun 
try,  I  rejoice  that  it  is  an  impossibility,  that  you  can  obtain  by  treaty 
from  her  those  territories,  under  the  existing  state  of  things. 

I  am  somewhat  at  a  loss  to  know,  on  what  plan  of  operations 
gentlemen  having  charge  of  this  war  intend  to  proceed.  We  hear 
much  said  of  the  terror  of  your  arms.  The  affrighted  Mexican,  it  is 
said,  when  you  shall  have  drenched  his  country  in  blood,  will  sue 
for  peace,  and  thus  you  will  indeed  "conquer  peace."  This  is  the 
heroic  and  savage  tone  in  which  we  have  heretofore  been  lectured  by 
our  friends  on  the  other  side  of  the  chamber,  especially  by  the  Sena 
tor  from  Michigan  [GENERAL  CASS].  But  suddenly  the  Chairman  of 
the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations  comes  to  us  with  a  smooth 
phrase  of  diplomacy,  made  potent  by  the  gentle  suasion  of  gold. 
The  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Military  Affairs  calls  for  thirty 
millions  of  money  and  ten  thousand  regular  troops ;  these,  we  are 
assured,  shall  "conquer  peace,"  if  the  obstinate  Celt  refuses  to  treat 
till  we  shall  whip  him  in  another  field  of  blood.  What  a  delightful 
scene  in  the  nineteenth  century  of  the  Christian  era?  What  an  inter 
esting  sight  to  see  these  two  representatives  of  war  and  peace  mov 
ing  in  grand  procession  through  the  halls  of  the  Montezumas !  J[he 
Senator  from  Michigan  [GENERAL  CASS],  red  with  the  blood  of  recent 
slaughter,"  the  gory  spear  of  Achilles  in  his  hand  and  the  hoarse 
clarion  of  war  in  his  mouth,  blowing  a  blast  "  so  loud  and  deep  " 
that  the  sleeping  echoes  of  the  lofty  Cordilleras  start  from  their  cav 
erns  and  return  the  sound,  till  every  ear  from  Panama  to  Santa  Fe  is 
deafened  with  the  roar.  By  his  side,  with  "modest  mien  and  down 
cast  look,"  comes  the  Senator  from  Arkansas  [MR.  SEVIER],  covered 
from  head  to  foot  with  a  gorgeous  robe,  glittering  and  embossed 
with  three  millions  of  shining  gold,  putting  to  shame  "the  wealth  of 
Ormus  or  of  Ind."  The  olive  of  Minerva  graces  his  brow;  in  his 
right  hand  is  the  delicate  rebec,  from  which  are  breathed,  in  Lydian 
measure,  notes  "that  tell  of  naught  but  love  and  peace."  I  fear 
very  much  you  will  scarcely  be  able  to  explain  to  the  simple,  savage 
mind  of  the  half-civilized  Mexicans,  the  puzzling  dualism  of  this 
scene,  at  once  gorgeous  and  grotesque.  Sir  I  scarcely  understand 


304  SPEECHES   OF   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

the  meaning  of  all  this  myself.  If  we  are  _  to  vindicate  our 
rights  by  battles — in  bloody  fields  of  war — let  us  do  it.  If  that  is 
not  the  plan,  why  then  let  us  call  back  our  armies  into  our  own  terri 
tory,  and  propose  a  treaty  with  Mexico,  based  upon  the  proposition 
that  money  is  better  for  her  and  land  is  better  for  us.  Thus  we  can 
treat  Mexico  like  an  equal  and  do  honor  to  ourselves.  But  what  is 
it  you  ask  ?  YoiuJhave  taken  from  Mexico  one-fourth  of  her  terri- 
toryt  _and  you  now  propose  to  run  a  line  comprehending  about 
another  third,  and  for  what  ?  I  ask,  Mr.  President,  for  what  ?  What 
has  Mexico  got  from  you,  for  parting  with  two-thirds  of  her  domain  ? 
She  has  given. you  ample  redress  for  every  injury  of  which  you  have 
complained.  She  has  submitted  to  the  award  of  your  commissioners, 
and  up  to  the  time  of  the  rupture  with  Texas,  faithfully  paid  it. 
And  for  all  that  she  has  lost  ( not  through  or  by  you,  but  which  loss 
has  been  your  gain),  what  requital  do  we,  her  strong,  rich,  robust 
neighbor,  make?  Do  we  send  our  missionaries  there  "to  point  the 
way  to  heaven?"  Or  do  we  send  the  schoolmasters  to  pour  daylight 
into  her  dark  places,  to  aid  her  infant  strength  to  conquer  freedom 
and  reap  the  fruit  of  the  independence  herself  alone  had  won  ?  No, 
no,  none  of  this  do  we.  But  we  send  regiments,  storm  towns,  and 
our  colonels  prate  of  liberty  in  the  midst  of  the  solitudes  their  rav 
ages  have  made.  They  proclaim  the  empty  forms  of  social  compact 
to  a  people  bleeding  and  maimed  with  wounds  received  in  defending 
their  hearth-stones  against  the  invasion  of  these  very  men  who  shoot 
them  down,  and  then  exhort  them  to  be  free.  Your  chaplains  of  the 
navy  throw  aside  the  New  Testament  and  seize  a  bill  of  rights.  The 
Rev.  Don  Walter  Colton,  I  see,  abandons  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
and  betakes  himself  to  Blackstone  and  Kent,  and  is  elected  a  Justice 
of  the  Peace !  He  takes  military  possession  of  some  town  in  Cali 
fornia,  and  instead  of  teaching  the  plan  of  the  atonement  and  the 
way  of  salvation  to  the  poor,  ignorant  Celt,  he  presents  Colt's  pistol 
to  his  ear,  and  calls  on  him  to  take  "trial  by  jury  and  habeas  corpus" 
or  nine  bullets  in  his  head.  Oh !  Mr.  President,  are  you  not  the 
lights  of  the  earth,  if  not  its  salt  ?  You,  you  are  indeed  opening  the 
eyes  of  the  blind  in  Mexico,  with  a  most  emphatic  and  exoteric 
power.  Sir,  if  all  this  were  not  a  sad,  mournful  truth,  it  would  be 
the  very  "ne  plus  ultra"  of  the  ridiculous. 

But,  sir,  let  us  see  what,  as  the  Chairman  of  the  Committee  of 
Foreign  Relations  explains  it,  we  are  to  get  by  the  combined  pro 
cesses -of  conquest  and  treaty. 


ON    THE    MEXICAN    WAR.  305 

What  is  the  territory,  Mr.  President,  which  you  propose  to 
wrest  from  Mexico  ?  It  is  consecrated  to  the  heart  of  the  Mexican 
by  many  a  well-fought  battle,  with  his  old  Castilian  master.  His 
Bunker  Hills,  and  Saratogas,  and  Yorktowns  are  there.  The  Mexi 
can  can  say,  "There  I  bled  for  liberty !  and  shall  I  surrender  that 
consecrated  home  of  my  affections  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  invaders? 
What  do  they  want  with  it  ?  They  have  Texas  already.  They  have 
possessed  themselves  of  the  territory  between  the  Nueces  and  the 
Rio  Grande.  What  else  do  they  want?  To  what  shall  I  point  my 
children  as  memorials  of  that  independence  which  I  bequeath  to 
them,  when  those  battle-fields  shall  have  passed  from  my  posses 
sion?" 

Sir,  had  one  come  and  demanded  Bunker  Hill  of  the  people  of 
Massachusetts,  had  England's  lion  ever  showed  himself  there,  is  there 
a  man  over  thirteen,  and  under  ninety  who  would  not  have  been 
ready  to  meet  him — is  there  a  river  on  this  continent  that  would  not 
have  run  red  with  blood — is  there  a  field  but  would  have  been  piled 
high  with  the  unburied  bones  of  slaughtered  Americans  before  these 
consecrated  battle-fields  of  liberty  should  have  been  wrested 
from  us?  But  this  same  American  goes  into  a  sister  republic,  and 
says,  to  poor,  weak  Mexico,  "Give  up  your  territory — you  are 
unworthy  to  possess  it — I  have  got  one-half  already — all  I  ask  of 
you  is  to  give  up  the  other!"  England  might  as  well,  in  the  circum 
stances  I  have  described,  have  come  and  demanded  of  us,  "Give  up 
the  Atlantic  slope — give  up  this  trifling  territory  from  the  Alleghany 
mountains  to  the  sea ;  it  is  only  from  Maine  to  St.  Mary's — only 
about  one-third  of  your  Republic,  and  the  least  interesting  portion 
of  it."  What  would  be  the  response?  They  would  say,  we  must 
give  this  up  to  John  Bull.  Why?  "He  wants  room."  The  Sena 
tor  from  Michigan  says  he  must  have  this.  Why,  my  worthy  Chris 
tian  brother,  on  what  principle  of  justice?  "I  want  room!" 

Sir,  look  at  this  pretense  of  want  of  room.  With  twenty  mill 
ions  of  people,  you  have  about  one  thousand  millions  of  acres  of  land, 
inviting  settlement  by  every  conceivable  argument — bringing  them 
down  to  a  quarter  of  a  dollar  an  acre,  and  allowing  every  man  to 
squat  where  he  pleases.  But  the  Senator  from  Michigan  says  we  will 
be  two  hundred  millions  in  a  few  years,  and  we  want  room.  If  I  were 
a  Mexican  I  would  tell  you,  "Have  you  not  room  in  your  own  coun 
try  to  bury  your  dead  men  ?  If  you  come  into  mine  we  will  greet 
you  with  bloody  hands,  and  welcome  you  to  hospitable  graves." 
21 


306  SPEECHES   OP  THOMAS    COE.WIN. 

Why,  says  the  Chairman  of  this  Committee  of  Foreign  Rela 
tions,  it  is  the  most  reasonable  thing  in  the  world !  We  ought  to 
have  the  Bay  of  San  Francisco.  Why  ?  Because  it  is  the  best  har 
bor  on  the  Pacific !  It  has  been  my  fortune,  Mr.  President,  to  have 
practiced  a  good  deal  in  criminal  courts  in  the  course  of  my  life,  but 
I  never  yet  heard  a  thief,  arraigned  for  stealing  a  horse,  plead  that  it 
was  the  best  horse  that  he  could  find  in  the  country !  We  want  Cal 
ifornia.  What  for?  Why,  says  the  Senator  from  Michigan,  we  will 
have  it ;  and  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina,  with  a  very  mistaken 
view,  I  think,  of  policy,  says,  you  can't  keep  our  people  from  going 
there.  I  don't  desire  to  prevent  them.  Let  them  go  and  seek  their 
happiness  in  whatever  country  or  clime  it  pleases  them. 

All  I  ask  of  them  is,  not  to  require  this  Government  to  protect 
them  with  that  banner  consecrated  to  war  waged  for  principles — 
eternal,  enduring  truth.  Sir,  it  is  not  meet  that  our  old  flag  should 
throw  its  protecting  folds  over  expeditions  for  lucre  or  for  land.  But 
you  still  say,  you  want  room  for  your  people.  This  has  been  the 
plea  of  every  robber-chief  from  Nimrod  to  the  present  hour.  I  dare 
say,  when  Tamerlane  descended  from  his  throne  built  of  seventy 
thousand  human  skulls,  and  marched  his  ferocious  battalions  to  fur 
ther  slaughter,  I  dare  say  he  said,  "I  want  room."  Bajazet  was 
another  gentleman  of  kindred  tastes  and  wants  with  us  Anglo-Sax 
ons — he  "wanted  room."  Alexander,  too,  the  mighty  "Macedon 
ian  madman,"  when  he  wandered  with  his  Greeks  to  the  plains  of 
India,  and  fought  a  bloody  battle  on  the  very  ground  where  recently 
England  and  the  Sikhs  engaged  in  strife  for  "room,"  was  no  doubt 
in  quest  of  some  California  there.  Many  a  Monterey  had  he  to 
storm  to  get  "room."  Sir,  he  made  quite  as  much  of  that  sort  of 
history  as  you  ever  will.  Mr.  President,  do  you  remember  the  last 
chapter  in  that  history?  It  is  soon  read.  Oh!  I  wish  we  could  but 
understand  its  moral.  Ammon's  son  (so  was  Alexander  named), 
after  all  his  victories,  died  drunk  in  Babylon !  The  vast  empire  he 
conquered  to  "get  room"  became  the  prey  of  the  generals  he  had 
trained ;  it  was  disparted,  torn  to  pieces,  and  so  ended.  Sir,  there  is 
a  very  significant  appendix;  it  is  this:  The  descendants  of  the 
Greeks — of  Alexander's  Greeks — are  now  governed  by  a  descendant 
of  Attila !  Mr.  President,  while  we  are  fighting  for  room,  let  us 
ponder  deeply  this  appendix.  I  was  somewhat  amazed,  the  other 
day,  to  hear  the  Senator  from  Michigan  declare  that  Europe  had 
quite  forgotten  us  till  these  battles  waked  them  up.  I  suppose  the 


ON    THE    MEXICAN    WAR.  307 

Senator  feels  grateful  to  the  President  for  "waking  up"  Europe. 
Does  the  President,  who  is,  I  hope,  read  in  civic  as  well  as  military 
lore,  remember  the  saying  of  one  who  had  pondered  upon  history 
long — long,  too,  upon  man,  his  nature  and  true  destiny?  Montes 
quieu  did  not  think  highly  of  this  way  of  "waking  up."  "Happy," 
says  he,  "is  that  nation  whose  annals  are  tiresome." 

The  Senator  from  Michigan  has  a  different  view  of  this.  He 
thinks  that  a  nation  is  not  distinguished  until  it  is  distinguished  in 
war ;  he  fears  that  the  slumbering  faculties  of  Europe  have  not  been 
able  to  ascertain  that  there  are  twenty  millions  of  Anglo-Saxons 
here,  making  railroads  and  canals,  and  speeding  all  the  arts  of  peace 
to  the  utmost  accomplishment  of  the  most  refined  civilization.  They 
dcTliot  know  it!  And  what  is  the  wonderful  expedient  which  this 
democratic  method  of  making  history  would  adopt  in  order  to  make 
us  known?  Storming  cities,  desolating  peaceful,  happy  homes, 
shooting  men — aye,  sir,  such  is  war — and  shooting  women,  too ! 

Sir,  I  have  read,  in  some  account  of  your  battle  of  Monterey, 
of  a  lovely  Mexican  girl,  who,  with  the  benevolence  of  an  angel  in 
her  bosom,  and  the  robust  courage  of  a  hero  in  her  heart,  was  busily 
engaged,  during  the  bloody  conflict,  amid  the  crash  of  falling  houses, 
the  groans  of  the  dying,  and  the  wild  shriek  of  battle,  in  carrying 
water  to  slake  the  burning  thirst  of  the  wounded  of  either  host. 
While  bending  over  a  wounded  American  soldier,  a  cannon-ball 
struck  her  and  blew  her  to  atoms !  Sir,  I  do  not  charge  my  brave, 
generous-hearted  countrymen  who  fought  that  fight  with  this.  No, 
no !  We  who  send  them — we  who  know  that  scenes  like  this,  which 
might  send  tears  of  sorrow  "down  Pluto's  iron  cheek,"  are  the 
invariable,  inevitable  attendants  on  war — we  are  accountable  for  this. 
And  this — this  is  the  way  we  are  to  be  made  known  to  Europe. 
This — this  is  to  be  the  undying  renown  of  free,  republican  America! 
"She  has  stormed  a  city — killed  many  of  its  inhabitants  of  both 
sexes — she  has  room!"  So  it  will  read.  Sir,  if  this  were  our  only 
history,  then  may  God  of  His  mercy  grant  that  its  volume  may 
speedily  come  to  a  close. 

Why  is  it,  sir,  that  we  of  the  United  States,  a  people  of  yes 
terday  compared  with  the  older  nations  of  the  world,  should  be  wag 
ing  war  for  territory — for  "  room?"  Look  at  your  country,  extend 
ing  from  the  Alleghany  Mountains  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  capable 
itself  of  sustaining,  in  comfort,  a  larger  population  than  will  be  in 
the  whole  Union  for  one  hundred  years  to  come.  Over  this  vast 


308  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

expanse  of  territory  your  population  is  now  so  sparse  that  I  believe 
we  provided,  at  the  last  session,  a  regiment  of  mounted  men  to 
guard  the  mail,  from  the  frontier  of  Missouri  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Columbia;  and  yet  you  persist  in  the  ridiculous  assertion,  "I  want 
room."  One  would  imagine,  from  the  frequent  reiteration  of  the 
complaint,  that  you  had  a  bursting,  teeming  population,  whose 
energy  was  paralyzed,  whose  enterprise  was  crushed,  for  want  of 
space.  Why  should  we  be  so  weak  or  wicked  as  to  offer  this  idle 
apology  for  ravaging  a  neighboring  republic?  It  will  impose  on  no 
one  at  home  or  abroad. 

Do  we  not  know,  Mr.  President,  that  it  is  a  law  never  to  be 
repealed,  that  falsehood  shall  be  short  lived?  Was  it  not  ordained 
of  old  that  truth  only  shall  abide  forever?  Whatever  we  may  say 
to-day,  or  whatever  we  may  write  in  our  books,  the  stern  tribunal  of 
history  will  review  it  all,  detect  falsehood,  and  bring  us  to  judgment 
before  that  posterity  which  shall  bless  or  curse  us,  as  \ve  may  act 
now,  wisely  or  otherwise.  We  may  hide  in  the  grave  (which  awaits 
us  all )  in  vain ;  we  may  hope  there,  like  the  foolish  bird  that  hides 
its  head  in  the  sand,  in  the  vain  belief  that  its  body  is  not  seen,  yet 
even  there  this  preposterous  excuse  of  want  of  "room"  shall  be 
laid  bare,  and  the  quick-coming  future  wrill  decide  that  it  was  a  hypo 
critical  pretense,  under  which  we  sought  to  conceal  the  avarice 
which  prompted  us  to  covet  and  to  seize  by  force  that  which  was 
not  ours. 

Mr.  President,  this  uneasy  desire  to  augment  our  territory  has 
depraved  the  moral  sense  and  blunted  the  otherwise  keen  sagacity  of 
our  people.  What  has  been  the  fate  of  all  nations  who  have  acted 
upon  the  idea  that  they  must  advance !  Our  young  orators  cherish 
this  notion  with  a  fervid,  but  fatally  mistaken  zeal.  They  call  it  by 
the  mysterious  name  of  "destiny."  "Our  destiny,"  they  say  is 
"onward,"  and  hence  they  argue,  with  ready  sophistry,  the  propri 
ety  of  seizing  upon  any  territory  and  any  people  that  may  He  in  the 
way  of  our  "fated"  advance.  Recently  these  progressives  have 
grown  classical ;  some  assiduous  student  of  antiquities  has  helped 
them  to  a  patron  saint.  They  have  wandered  back  into  the  deso 
lated  Pantheon,  and  there,  among  the  Polytheistic  relics  of  that 
"pale  mother  of  dead  empires,"  they  have  found  a  god  whom  these 
Romans,  centuries  gone  by,  baptized  "Terminus." 

Sir,  I  have  heard  much  and  read  somewhat  of  this  gentleman  Ter 
minus.  Alexander,  of  whom  I  have  spoken,  was  a  devotee  of  this 


ON    THE    MEXICAN    WAR.  309 

divinity.  We  have  seen  the  end  of  him  and  his  empire.  It  was 
said  to  be  an  attribute  of  this  god  that  he  must  always  advance,  and 
never  recede.  So  both  republican  and  imperial  Rome  believed.  It 
was,  as  they  said,  their  destiny.  And  for  a  while  it  did  seem  to  be 
even  so.  Roman  Terminus  did  advance.  Under  the  eagles  of 
Rome  he  was  carried  from  his  home  on  the  Tiber  to  the  furthest 
East  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  the  far  West,  among  the  then  bar 
barous  tribes  of  western  Europe,  on  the  other.  But  at  length  the 
time  came  when  retributive  justice  had  become  "a  destiny."  The 
despised  Gaul  calls  out  the  contemned  Goth,  and  Attila,  with  his 
Huns,  answers  back  the  battle  shout  to  both.  The  "blue  eyed  na 
tions  of  the  North,"  in  succession  or  united,  pour  forth  their  count 
less  hosts  of  warriors  upon  Rome  and  Rome's  always-advancing 
god  Terminus.  And  now  the  battle-ax  of  the  barbarian  strikes 
down  the  conquering  eagle  of  Rome.  Terminus  at  last  recedes, 
slov/ly  at  first,  but  finally  he  is  driven  to  Rome,  and  from  Rome  to 
Byzantium.  Whoever  would  know  the  further  fate  of  this  Roman 
deity,  so  recently  taken  under  the  patronage  of  American  Democ 
racy,  may  find  ample  gratification  of  his  curiosity  in  the  luminous 
pages  of  Gibbon's  "Decline  and  Fall."  Such  will  find  that  Rome 
thought  as  you  now  think,  that  it  was  her  destiny  to  conquer  prov 
inces  and  nations,  and  no  doubt  she  sometimes  said  as  you  say,  "I 
will  conquer  a  peace,"  and  where  now  is  she,  the  Mistress  of  the 
World  ?  The  spider  weaves  his  web  in  her  palaces,  the  owl  sings  his 
watch-song  in  her  towers.  Teutonic  power  now  lords  it  over  the  ser 
vile  remnant,  the  miserable  memento  of  old  and  once  omnipotent 
Rome.  Sad,  very  sad,  are  the  lessons  which  time  has  written  for  us. 
Through  and  in  them  all,  I  see  nothing  but  the  inflexible  execution 
of  that  old  law,  which  ordains  as  eternal,  that  cardinal  rule,  "Thou 
shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbor's  goods,  nor  anything  which  is  his." 
Since  I  have  lately  heard  so  much  about  the  dismemberment  of 
Mexico,  I  have  looked  back  to  see  how,  in  the  course  of  events, 
which  some  call  "Providence,"  it  has  fared  with  other  nations,  who 
engaged  in  this  work  of  dismemberment.  I  see  that  in  the  latter' 
half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  three  powerful  nations,  Russia,  Aus 
tria  and  Prussia,  united  in  the  dismemberment  of  Poland.  They 
said,  too,  as  you  say,  "it  is  our  destiny."  They  "wanted  room. " 
Doubtless  each  of  these  thought,  with  his  share  of  Poland,  his  power 
was  too  strong  ever  to  fear  invasion,  or  even  insult.  One  had  his 
California,  another  his  New  Mexico  and  the  third  his  Vera  Cruz. 


310  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

Did  they  remain  untouched  and  incapable  of  harm  ?  Alas !  No — 
far,  very  far  from  it.  Retributive  justice  must  fulfill  its  destiny,  too. 
A  very  few  years  pass  off,  and  we  hear  of  a  new  man,  a  Corsican 
lieutenant,  the  self-named  "armed  soldier  of  Democracy,"  Napoleon. 
He  ravages  Austria,  covers  her  land  with  blood,  drives  the  Northern 
Caesar  from  his  capital,  and  sleeps  in  his  palace.  Austria  may  now 
remember  how  her  power  trampled  upon  Poland.  Did  she  not  pay 
dear,  very  dear,  for  her  California? 

But  has  Prussia  no  atonement  to  make?  You  see  this  same 
Napoleon,  the  blind  instrument  of  Providence,  at  work  there.  The 
thunders  of  his  cannon  at  Jena  proclaim  the  work  of  retribution  for 
Poland's  wrongs;  and  the  successors  of  the  Great  Frederick,  the 
drill-sergeant  of  Europe,  are  seen  flying  across  the  sandy  plain  that 
surrounds  their  capital,  right  glad  if  they  may  escape  captivity  or 
death.  But  how  fares  it  with  the  Autocrat  of  Russia  ?  Is  he  secure 
in  his  share  of  the  spoils  of  Poland?  No.  Suddenly  we  see,  sir, 
six  hundred  thousand  armed  men  marching  to  Moscow.  Does  his 
Vera  Cruz  protect  him  now?  Far  from  it.  Blood,  slaughter,  deso 
lation  spread  abroad  over  the  land,  and  finally  the  conflagration  of 
the  old  commercial  metropolis  of  Russia,  closes  the  retribution  she 
must  pay  for  her  share  in  the  dismemberment  of  her  weak  and  impo 
tent  neighbor.  Mr.  President,  a  mind  more  prone  to  look  for  the 
judgments  of  Heaven  in  the  doings  of  men  than  mine,  cannot  fail  in 
this  to  see  the  providence  of  God.  When  Moscow  burned,  it 
seemed  as  if  the  earth  was  lighted  up,  that  the  ^nations  might  behold 
the  scene.  As  that  mighty  sea  of  fire  gathered  and  heaved  and 
rolled  upward,  and  yet  higher,  till  its  flames  licked  the  stars,  and  fired 
the  whole  heavens,  it  did  seem  as  though  the  God  of  the  nations  was 
writing  in  characters  of  flame  on  the  front  of  his  throne,  that  doom 
that  shall  fall  upon  the  strong  nation  which  tramples  in  scorn  upon 
the  weak.  And  what  fortune  awaits  him,  the  appointed  executor  of 
this  work,  when  it  was  all  done?  He,  too,  conceived  the  notion  that 
his  destiny  pointed  onward  to  universal  dominion.  France  was  too 
small — Europe,  he  thought,  should  bow  down  before  him.  But  as 
soon  as  this  idea  took  possession  of  his  soul,  he,  too,  becomes  pow 
erless.  His  Terminus  must  recede,  too.  Right  there,  while  he  wit 
nessed  the  humiliation,  and  doubtless  meditated  the  subjugation  of 
Russia,  He  who  holds  the  winds  in  His  fist  gathered  the  snows  of 
the  north  and  blew  them  upon  his  six  hundred  thousand  men ;  they 
fled — they  froze — they  perished.  And  now  the  mighty  Napoleon, 


ON    THE    MEXICAN    WAR.  311 

who  had  resolved  on  universal  dominion,  Jte,  too,  is  summoned  to 
answer  for  the  violation  of  that  ancient  law,  "thou  shalt  not  covet 
anything  which  is  thy  neighbor's."  How  is  the  mighty  fallen! 
He,  beneath  whose  proud  footstep  Europe  trembled,  he  is  now  an 
exile  at  Elba,  and  now  finally  a  prisoner  on  the  rock  of  St.  Helena, 
and  there,  on  a  barren  island,  in  an  unfrequented  sea,  in  the  crater  of  an 
extinguished  volcano,  there  is  the  death-bed  of  the  mighty  conqueror. 
All  his  annexations  have  come  to  that !  His  last  hourjs  now  come, 
and  he,  the  man  of  destiny,  he  who  had  rocked  the  world  as  with  the 
throes  of  an  earthquake,  is  now  powerless,  still — even  as  a  beggar, 
so^he  died.  On  the  wings  of  a  tempest  that  raged  with  unwonted 
fury,  up  to  the  throne  of  the  only  Power  that  controlled  him  while 
he  lived,  went  the  fiery  soul  of  that  wonderful  warrior,  another  wit 
ness  to  the  existence  of  that  eternal  decree,  that  they  who  do  not 
rule  in  righteousness  shall  perish  from  the  earth.  He  has  found 
'•'room"  at  last.  And  France,  she,  too,  has  found  "room."  Her 
"eagles"  now  no  longer  scream  along  the  banks  of  the  Danube,  the 
Po  and  the  Borysthenes.  They  have  returned  home,  to  their  old 
eyrie,  between  the  Alps,  the  Rhine  and  the  Pyrenees ;  so  shall  it  be 
with  yours.  You  may  carry  them  to  the  loftiest  peaks  of  the  Cor 
dilleras,  they  may  wave  with  insolent  triumph  in  the  Halls  of  the 
Montezumas,  the  armed  men  of  Mexico  may  quail  before  them,  but 
the  weakest  hand  in  Mexico,  uplifted  in  prayer  to  the  God  of  Jus 
tice,  may  call  down  against  you  a  Power,  in  the  presence  of  which, 
the  iron  hearts  of  your  warriors  shall  be  turned  into  ashes. 

Mr.  President,  if  the  history  of  our  race  has  established  any 
truth,  it  is  but  a  confirmation  of  what  is  written,  "the  way  of  the 
transgressor  is  hard."  Inordinate  ambition,  wantoning  in  power 
and  spurning  the  humble  maxims  of  justice  has — ever  has — and  ever 
shall  end  in  ruin.  Strength  cannot  always  trample  upon  weakness — 
the  humble  shall  be  exalted,  the  bowed  down  will  at  length  be  lifted 
up.  It  is  by  faith  in  the  law  of  strict  justice,  and  the  practice  of  its 
precepts,  that  nations  alone  can  be  saved.  All  the  annals  of  the 
human  race,  sacred  and  profane,  are  written  over  with  this  great 
truth,  in  characters  of  living  light.  It  is  my  fear,  my  fixed  belief, 
that  in  this  invasion,  this  war  with  Mexico,  we  have  forgotten  this 
vital  truth.  Why  is  it,  that  we  have  been  drawn  into  this  whirlpool 
of  war?  How  clear  and  strong  was  the  light  that  shone  upon  the 
path  of  duty  a  year  ago !  The  last  disturbing  question  with  England 
was  settled — our  power  extended  its  peaceful  sway  from  the  Atlantic 


312  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

to-the  Pacific;  from  the  Alleghanies  we  looked  out  upon  Europe, 
and  from  the  tops  of  the  Stony  Mountains  we  could  descry  the 
shores  of  Asia;  a  rich  commerce  with  all  the  nations  of  Europe 
poured  wealth  and  abundance  into  our  lap  on  the  Atlantic  side, 
while  an  unoccupied  commerce  of  three  hundred  millions  of  Asiatics 
waited  on  the  Pacific  for  our  enterprise  to  come  and  possess  it.  One 
hundred  millions  of  dollars  will  be  wasted  in  this  fruitless  war.  Had 
this  money  of  the  people  been  expended  in  making  a  railroad  from 
your  northern  lakes  to  the  Pacific,  as  one  of  your  citizens  has  begged 
of  you  in  vain,  you  would  have  made  a  highway  for  the  world  be 
tween  Asia  and  Europe.  Your  Capital  then  would  be  within  thirty  or 
forty  days'  travel  of  any  and  every  point  on  the  map  of  the  civilized 
world.  Through  this  great  artery  of  trade,  you  would  have  carried 
through  the  heart  of  your  own  country,  the  teas  of  China  and  the 
spices  of  India  to  the  markets  of  England  and  France.  Why,  why, 
Mr.  President,  did  we  abandon  the  enterprises  of  peace,  and  betake 
ourselves  to  the  barbarous  achievements  of  war  ?  Why  did  we  ' '  for 
sake  this  fair  and  fertile  field  to  batten  on  that  moor." 

But,  Mr.  President,  if  further  acquisition  of  territory  is  to  be 
the  result  either  of  conquest  or  treaty,  then  I  scarcely  know  which 
should  be  preferred,  eternal  war  with  Mexico,  or  the  hazards  of 
internal  commotion  at  home,  which  last,  I  fear,  may  come  if  another 
province  is  to  be  added  to  our  territory.  There  is  one  topic  con 
nected  with  this  subject  which  I  tremble  when  I  approach,  and  yet  I 
cannot  forbear  to  notice  it.  It  meets  you  in  every  step  you  take. 
It  threatens  you  which  way  soever  you  go  in  the  prosecution  of  this 
war.  I  allude  to  the  question  of  Slavery.  Opposition  to  its  further 
extension,  it  must  be  obvious  to  every  one,  is  a  deeply-rooted  deter 
mination  with  men  of  all  parties  in  what  we  call  the  non-slaveholding 
States.  New  York,  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio,  three  of  the  most  pow 
erful,  have  already  sent  their  legislative  instructions  here — so  it  will 
be,  I  doubt  not,  in  all  the  rest.  It  is  vain  now  to  speculate  about 
the  reasons  for  this.  Gentlemen  of  the  South  may  call  it  prejudice, 
passion,  hypocrisy,  fanaticism.  I  shall  not  dispute  with  them  now 
on  that  point.  The  great  fact  that  it  is  so,  and  not  otherwise,  is 
what  it  concerns  us  to  know.  You  nor  I  cannot  alter  or  change  this 
opinion  if  we  would.  These  people  only  say,  we  will  not,  cannot 
consent  that  you  shall  carry  slavery  where  it  does  not  already  exist. 
They  do  not  seek  to  disturb  you  in  that  institution,  as  it  exists  in 
your  States.  Enjoy  it  if  you  will,  and  as  you  will.  This  is  their 


ON    THE    MEXICAN    WAR.  313 

language,  this  their  determination.  HOW  is  it  in  the  South?  Can  it 
be  expected  that  they  should  expend  in  common,  their  blood  and 
their  treasure,  in  the  acquisition  of  immense  territory,  and  then  will 
ingly  forego  the  right  to  carry  thither  their  slaves,  and  inhabit  the 
conquered  country  if  they  please  to  do  so?  Sir,  I  know  the  feelings 
and  opinions  of  the  South  too  well  to  calculate  on  this.  Nay,  I 
believe  they  would  even  contend  to  any  extremity  for  the  mere 
right,  had  they  no  wish  to  exert  it.  I  believe  (and  I  confess  I  trem 
ble  when  the  conviction  presses  upon  me )  that  there  is  equal  obsti 
nacy  on  both  sides  of  this  fearful  question.  If  then,  we  persist  in 
war,  which  if  it  terminate  in  anything  short  of  a  mere  wanton  waste 
of  blood  as  well  as  money,  must  end  ( as  this  bill  proposes )  in  the 
acquisition  of  territory,  to  which  at  once  this  controversy  must 
attach — this  bill  would  seem  to  be  nothing  less  than  a  bill  to  produce 
internal  commotion.  Should  we  prosecute  this  war  another  moment 
or  expend  one  dollar  in  the  purchase  or  conquest  of  a  single  acre  of 
Mexican  land,  the  North  and  the  South  are  brought  into  collison  on 
a  point  where  neither  will  yield.  Who  can  foresee  or  foretell  the 
result  ?  Who  so  bold  or  reckless  as  to  look  such  a  conflict  in  the 
face  unmoved?  I  do  not  envy  the  heart  of  him  who  can  realize  the 
possibility  of  such  a  conflict  without  emotions  too  painful  to  be 
endured.  Why  then  shall  we,  the  representatives  of  the  sovereign 
States  of  this  Union — the  chosen  guardians  of  this  confederated 
Republic,  why  should  we  precipitate  this  fearful  struggle,  by  contin 
uing  a  war,  the  results  of  which  must  be  to  force  us  at  once  upon  it? 
Sir,  rightly  considered,  this  is  treason,  treason  to  the  Union,  treason 
to  the  dearest  interests,  the  loftiest  aspirations,  the  most  cherished 
hopes  of  our  constituents.  It  is  a  crime  to  risk  the  possibility  of 
such  a  contest.  It  is  a  crime  of  such  infernal  hue,  that  every  other 
iir-the  catalogue  of  iniquity,  when  compared  with  it,  whitens  into 
virtue.  Oh,  Mr.  President,  it  does  seem  to  me,  if  hell  itself  could 
yawn  and  vomit  up  the  fiends  that  inhabit  its  penal  abodes,  commis 
sioned  to  disturb  the  harmony  of  this  world,  and  dash  the  fairest 
prospect  of  happiness  that  ever  allured  the  hopes  of  men,  the  first 
step  in  the  consummation  of  this  diabolical  purpose  would  be,  to 
light  up  the  fires  of  internal  war,  and  plunge  the  sister  States  of  this 
Union  into  the  bottomless  gulf  of  civil  strife.  We  stand  this  day  on 
the  crumbling  brink  of  that  gulf — we  see  its  bloody  eddies  wheeling 
and  boiling  before  us — shall  we  not  pause  before  it  be  too  late? 
How  plain  again  is  here  the  path,  I  may  add  the  only  way  of  duty, 


314  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

of  prudence,  of  true  patriotism.  Let  us  abandon  all  idea  of  acquir 
ing  further  territory,  and  by  consequence  cease  at  once  to  prosecute 
this  war.  Let  us  call  home  our  armies,  and  bring  them  at  once 
within  our  own  acknowledged  limits.  Show  Mexico  that  you  are 
sincere  when  you  say  you  desire  nothing  by  conquest.  She  has 
learned  that  she  cannot  encounter  you  in  war,  and  if  she  had  not, 
she  is  too  weak  to  disturb  you  here.  Tender  her  peace,  .and  my  life 
on  it,  she  will  then  accept  it.  But  whether  she  shall  or  not,  you  will 
have  peace  without  her  consent.  It  is  your  invasion  that  has  made 
war,  your  retreat  will  restore  peace.  Let  us  then  close  forever  the 
approaches  of  internal  feud,  and  so  return  to  the  ancient  concord 
and  the  old  way  of  national  prosperity  and  permanent  glory.  Let 
us  here,  in  this  temple  consecrated  to  the  Union,  perform  a  solemn 
lustration;  let  us  wash  Mexican  blood  from  our  hands,  and  on  these 
altars,  in  the  presence  of  that  image  of  the  Father  of  his  country 
that  looks  down  upon  us,  swear  to  preserve  honorable  peace  with  all 
the  world,  and  eternal  brotherhood  with  each  other. 


INCIDENTAL  REMARKS  ON  "THREE  MILLION  BILL." 


In  United  States  Senate  March  1st,  1847. 

Mr.  Corvvin  rose  to  explain  the  motives  which  influenced  him  in 
giving  his  vote,  on  a  former  occasion,  on  a  bill  similar  to  the  one 
before  the  Senate,  to  which  allusion  had  been  made  by  the  Senator 
from  Delaware  [MR.  J.  M.  CLAYTON],  in  the  course  of  his  speech 
to-day.  The  vote  of  the  preceding  session,  he  believed,  was  almost, 
if  not  altogether,  unanimous.  It  was  the  first  of  a  series  of  bills 
passed  at  that  time,  and  passed  speedily.  He  admitted  that  he  voted 
for  that  bill ;  he  voted  for  it  under  the  circumstances  in  which  it  was 
presented  to  the  Senate.  They  were  officially  advised  that  our  army 
had  been  ordered  by  the  President  to  march  from  the  position  it  had 
occupied  on  the  Nueces  to  the  Rio  Grande.  This  order  was  given 
by  the  President,  the  commander-in-chief,  and  the  army  was  not  at 
liberty  to  disobey.  They  were  also  informed  that  hostilities  had 
been  commenced  between  us  and  Mexico.  At  that  time  General 
Taylor  had  under  his  command  certainly  not  exceeding  three  thou 
sand  men — his  impression  was  that  General  Taylor  had  not  more 
than  two  thousand  five  hundred  men.  They  were  informed  at  the 
same  time,  in  the  same  document,  which  came  to  them  from  the 
President — if  it  were  not  so,  he  hoped  he  should  be  corrected — or 
through  other  channels,  that  the  Mexican  force  amounted  to  eight 
thousand  men — some  statements  made  it  a  force  of  twelve  thousand 
men — which  was  hovering  about  our  little  army  with  the  avowed 
determination  to  exterminate  them.  Under  these  circumstances,  the 
President  of  the  United  States  asked  for  men  and  money — not  for 
the  prosecution  of  a  war  of  invasion  into  the  heart  of  Mexico — not 
for  the  avowed  purpose  of  taking  possession  of  her  towns — still  less, 
as  he  was  reminded  by  the  Senator  from  Georgia  [MR.  BERRIEN],  to 
dismember  the  Mexican  republic,  seizing  a  province  here  and  another 
there,  and  holding  them  by  right  of  conquest,  that  they  may  serve 
as  security  and  indemnity  for  the  almost  boundless  expense  of  this 
war.  He  at  that  time  voted  for  that  bill,  as  he  understood  every 
Senator  on  this  side  of  the  chamber  did  except  two,  not  with  a  view 

(315) 


316  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

to  make  war  on  Mexico,  but  for  the  rescue  of  our  little  army  from 
its  perilous  position.  The  Senator  from  Delaware  had  this  day 
reminded  him  of  that  vote,  and  by  implication  reproached  him  with 
apparent  inconsistency. 

Mr.  CLAYTON  remarked,  "Not  at  all.     The   Senator  has  perfectly  justified  his 
vote." 

Well,  then,  the  Senator  from  Delaware  had  taken  it  unkind  in 
him  that,  to  quote  the  Senator's  own  eloquent  language,  he  had  hung 
his  harp  upon  the  willow  that  day  when  his  own  and  the  harp  of  his 
friend  from  Kentucky  [MR.  CRITTENDEN]  were  strung  to  such  melliflu 
ous  tones.      Mr.  Corwin  remembered  well  that  he  was  silent  on  that 
occasion,   and  he  should  have  been  silent  up  to  this  hour,    if  it  had 
not  been  that  he  was  now  placed  in  a  different  position,   and  he  was 
anxious  to  vindicate  that  position.      Why  should  he  have  spoken? 
Delighted  as  he  was  then,  and  on  all  occasions,  to  listen  to  the  harp- 
ings  of  his  friends  from  Delaware  and  Kentucky,  he  knew  his  own 
music  would  have  fallen  upon  deaf  ears.     Those  Senators  had  waked 
up  tones  of  deep  supplication,  and  what  followed?     Why,  after  they 
had  strung  their  harps  to  notes  of  woe,  they  sat  down  to  weep.      Mr. 
Corwin  had  not  thought  it  necessary  to  tune  his  harp  on  that  day, 
and  he  did  not  now  regret  it.      He,  however,  voted  to  give  men  and 
money  for  the  purposes  he  had  expressed,  and  what  were  they  now 
told  by  the  Executive  message?     That  when  the  demand  was  made 
on  Congress  for  these  supplies,  it  was  for  the  purpose  of  making  a 
systematic  invasion  of  Mexico,  to  dismember  her  territory,  and  hold 
ing  it  by  force  until  she  would  accept  such  terms  as  it  pleases  her 
conqueror  to  prescribe.      But  those  terms  were  not  made  known  to 
him.     They  were  not  advised  what  they  will  be,   and  the  Mexicans 
were  to  be  left  altogether  to  Executive  mercy.      Under  these  circum 
stances,  he  thought  an  extreme  case  was  presented — a  case  which  he 
found  Senators  on  his  side  of  the  chamber  willing  to  say  may  arise, 
which  might  justify  them  in  withholding  the  supplies.      He  had  acted 
upon  his  convictions  of  duty  in  the  case,  as  it  was  presented  to  him ; 
but  it  never  entered  into  his  heart   or  his  head  to  cast   censure   on 
those  honorable  Senators  who  differed  from  him.      It  was  a  long 
time,  and  after  painful  reflection,  that  he  brought  himself  to  consent 
to  give  a  vote  different  from  the  vote  of  those  respected  Senators 
around  him,   to  wrhom  he  looked  as  his  instructors  and  guides.      He 
had  risen  merely  to  set  himself  right,  and  having  done  so,  he  should 
resume  his  seat. 


ON  THE  TERRITORIAL  GOVERNMENT  OF  OREGON. 


IN  the  course  of  the  protracted  debate  in  the  United  States  Senate,  upon  the  bill 
to  establish  the  Territorial  Government  of  Oregon,  Mr.  CLAYTON,  of  Delaware,  on  the 
I2th  July,  1848,  moved  that  a  committee  of  eight  Senators — four  from  the  Northern, 
and  four  from  the  Southern  sections  of  the  Union — be  appointed  by  ballot,  to  whom 
the  subject  should  be  referred.  This  motion  prevailed;  and  the  Committee  on  Terri 
tories  was  discharged  from  the  further  consideration  of  so  much  of  the  President's  Mes 
sage,  as  related  to  New  Mexico  and  California,  and  the  same  referred  to  the  said  com 
mittee  of  eight. 

Pending  the  preliminary  debate  upon  this  motion,  in  reply  to  an  inquiry  of  Mr. 
CORWIN'S,  the  Senators  of  South  Carolina  [Mr.  BUTLER  and  Mr.  CALHOUN]  denounced 
the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  in  the  case  of  the  State  of 
Pennsylvania  vs.  Prigg,  so  far  as  the  Court  held  that  all  State  legislation  of  that  char 
acter,  whether  intended  to  retard  or  facilitate  the  owner  in  the  apprehension  of  his  fugi 
tive  slave,  was  unconstitutional.  But  the  former  ol  these  Senators  [Mr.  BUTLER] 
agreed  with  the  Chief  Justice  and  two  of  the  associates  upon  that  case,  who,  he  said, 
held  that  the  non-slaveholding  States  "  could  pass  no  laws  to  prohibit  the  owner  from 
exercising  his  constitutional  rights  in  reclaiming  his  runaway  slave ;  but  that  they 
might  make  such  laws  as  would  facilitate  the  delivery,  which  the  obligation  of  good 
faith  would  demand  at  their  hands."  Mr.  CORWIN  said : 

I  am  perfectly  satisfied  that  the  Senator  stated  the  decision  as 
recorded  in  our.  books.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  a  majority  of  the 
bench  have  decided  the  question  which  I  proposed. 

Mr.  CALHOUN — I  do  not  recognize  the  decision. 

I  will  not  undertake  to  say,  from  a  very  accurate  criticism  of 
the  case,  whether  the  point  now  suggested  was  brought  up  directly 
before  the  court ;  but  it  was  discussed  before  it,  as  one  of  the  ques 
tions  necessary  to  arrive  at  the  decisions  on  the  main  point ;  and 
being  discussed  by  the  counsel  on  both  sides,  the  question  was  as 
fully  decided  by  the  court  as  any  other  brought  before  them.  In 
regard  to  the  legislation  of  the  States,  I  am  not  prepared  to  say 
whether  the  gentleman  from  South  Carolina  is  fully  correct  in  the 
statement  of  his  views.  But  I  think  the  gentlemen  from  the  South 
have  allowed  their  sensibilities  to  be  quite  too  much  excited  on  this 

subject.      With  regard  to  the  transactions  referred  to  in  Kentucky, 

(317) 


318  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

there  has  been  a  great  mistake  as  to  the  facts.  Commissioners  were 
sent  on  behalf  of  the  State  of  Kentucky  to  the  State  of  Ohio,  for 
the  purpose  of  negotiating  a  treaty  of  extradition,  as  the  gentleman 
from  South  Carolina  calls  it ;  and  I  have  only  to  say,  that  we  did  not 
imprison  them  nor  send  them  home.  We  allowed  them  to  remain 
at  our  court,  where,  with  the  help  of  the  imperial  parliament  of 
Ohio,  a  law  was  enacted  perfectly  satisfactory  to  both  sides,  and 
almost  in  terms  the  same  as  the  law  of  Pennsylvania,  which  was 
decided  upon  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  That  law 
was  repealed  by  the  legislature  of  the  State  of  Ohio,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  the  highest  judicial  tribunal  in  the  United  States  had 
decided  that  they  had  no  constitutional  power  to  pass  it.  Now,  if 
these  States  lying  within  that  district  of  country  spoken  of  as 
included  in  the  ordinance  of  1787,  are  denounced  for  not  complying 
as  is  supposed,  with  the  terms  of  that  ordinance,  when  it  is  shown 
that  they  have  legislated  exactly  according  to  the  prescription  of  that 
only  tribunal  who  can  interpret  judicially  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  all  I  can  say  is,  that  the  charge  falls  harmless  at  our 
feet,  and  that  all  Christendom,  in  all  time  to  come,  will  absolve 
us  of  it. 

Mr.  BUTLER — I  hope  the  gentleman  will  inform  us  whether  that  extraordinary 
embassy  from  Kentucky  to  the  "imperial  court "  of  Ohio,  was  not  occasioned  by  the 
intolerable  mischiefs  which  the  people  of  Kentucky  suffered  from  the  escaping  of  their 
slaves  into  Ohio,  beyond  the  reach  of  reclamation  ? 

I  will  answer  the  Senator  with  great  pleasure.  The  embassy 
originated  in  the  solicitude  of  our  sister  State  of  Kentucky  to  pre 
serve  amicable  relations  with  us.  The  reason  assigned  by  the  em 
bassy  was,  that  our  law  did  not  furnish  to  them  the  means  of 
reclaiming  their  fugitive  slaves.  The  people  of  the  United  States 
had  acted  upon  the  subject  in  the  law  of  1793;  but  it  seems  that 
they  did  not  act  with  that  degree  of  efficiency  necessary,  in  the 
judgment  of  the  people  of  Kentucky,  to  secure  to  them  their  prop 
erty.  There  was  another  reason  which  induced  the  State  of  Ohio  to 
entertain  that  negotiation,  and  to  enact  this  law.  The  people  of 
Ohio  were  just  as  solicitous  as  their  fellow-citizens  of  Kentucky  to 
have  a  statute  on  that  subject,  or  at  least  embracing  many  of  the 
cases  supposed  in  Kentucky  to  fall  within  the  law.  There  were,  I 
believe,  a  few  felons  in  Kentucky — for  there  is,  I  believe,  a  peniten 
tiary  there — and  occasionally  it  contained  individuals  supposed  to 
have  committed  crimes.  Some  of  them,  finding  it  inconvenient  to 


TERRITORIAL    GOVERNMENT    OF    OREGON.  319 

execute  their  purposes  in  Kentucky,  were  in  the  habit  of  coming 
over  to  Ohio  for  the  purpose  of  kidnapping  negroes.  Occasionally, 
a  gentleman  would  be  killed  in  this  amiable  pursuit;  and  the  apology 
was,  that  they  had  come  to  reclaim  fugitive  slaves.  If  this  state 
ment  were  false,  no  harm  was  done;  if  true,  the  man  who  shot  him 
was  punished  as  a  murderer,  under  the  law  of  Ohio.  It  was,  there 
fore,  very  desirable  on  both  sides,  as  well  to  protect  Kentucky  in 
claiming  her  slaves  as  to  prevent  Kentuckians  from  coming  over  to 
kidnap — a  very  common  practice  in  all  States  bordering  on  slave 
States,  with  which  we  were  greatly  troubled,  the  expense  from  peni 
tentiaries  being  very  considerably  augmented  from  that  very  source 
— that  the  question  should  be  settled. 

Mr.  CALHOUN — I  cannot  permit  the  Senator  to  escape  even  under  a  decision  of 
the  Supreme  Court.  By  express  contract  between  the  rest  of  the  States  and  the  people 
inhabiting  these  territories,  which  are  now  States,  the  latter  bound  themselves  to  deliver 
up  our  fugitive  slaves.  They  are  the  parties  to  that  contract,  under  the  ordinance, 
and  it  has  not  been  superseded  by  the  Constitution. 

Have  not  the  Supreme  Court,  to  which  reference  has  been 
made,  interpreted  our  rights,  duties  and  powers,  under  that  com 
pact? 

Mr.  CALHOUN — Simply  and  only  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
They  could  not  put  aside  a  contract.  It  stands  upon  higher  principles.  It  stands 
entirely  on  different  ground  from  the  case  in  Pennsylvania.  The  decision  has  not  been 
confirmed,  and  I  trust  never  will  be.  I  have  always  considered  it  as  the  most  extraor 
dinary  decision  ever  made.  But  I  put  that  aside,  and  present  the  positive  contract 
between  these  parties.  There  was  no  United  States  Government  then  to  fulfill  it.  The 
old  Congress  had  no  such  power.  There  stands  the  contract,  and  will  ever  stand, 
around  which  it  is  impossible  to  go. 

I  have  only  one  remark  in  reply  to  the  Senator's  view  of  our 
obligations  under  the  Ordinance.  When  the  Supreme  Court  decided 
that,  under  the  Constitution,  made  subsequently  to  that  Ordinance, 
these  States  had  no  power  to  pass  such  laws,  unquestionably  they 
have  given  a  judicial  interpretation  to  their  rights,  power  and  duties 
under  the  Ordinance  as  well  as  under  the  Constitution.  The  truth 
is,  that  the  Ordinance  and  the  Constitution  are  in  the  very  same 
words.  Whatever  obligations  there  may  be  under  the  Ordinance  of 
1787  remain  under  the  Constitution,  and  are  re-imposed  by  that 
instrument.  Now,  it  must  be  seen,  that  the  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court  comprehends  every  obligation  under  which  the  State  of  Ohio, 
or  any  northwestern  State,  has  been  placed  by  virtue  of  that  Ordi 
nance.  Surely  if  that  compact,  in  the  judgment  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  had  had  an  obligation  above  the  Constitution  and  beyond  it, 


320  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

they  would  have  said  so.  It  is  true  that  the  case  was  one  from 
Pennsylvania,  but  much  of  the  discussion,  as  every  gentleman  who 
attended  to  it  at  that  time  knows,  was  upon  this  very  Ordinance. 
But  that  is  immaterial.  If  the  obligations  under  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  which  the  State  of  Ohio,  or  any  other  State  of 
the  Northwestern  Territory,  owes  to  the  South,  as  it  is  called,  exists 
by  virtue  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  they  are  not  tol 
erated  in  legislating  upon  the  subject. 

Mr.  CALHOUN — I  cannot  permit  even  that  view  of  the  case  to  pass.  The  Consti 
tution  expressly  provides  for  the  continuance  of  this  contract  between  the  United  States 
and  the  people  that  inhabited  the  Northwest  Territory.  The  sixth  article  of  the  Con 
stitution  contains  an  express  permission  that  "all  debts  contracted,  and  engagements 
entered  into  before  the  adoption  of  this  Constitution  shall  be  as  valid  against  the  United 
States  under  this  Constitution  as  under  the  Confederation."  Now,  is  it  not  manifest 
that  the  Ordinance  of  1787  looked  to  its  fulfillment  under  the  present  Government,  and 
not  the  old  Confederation,  which  had  no  machinery,  no  capacity  to  execute  it  ?  If  the 
words  of  the  Ordinance  and  those  in  the  Constitution  are  precisely  the  same — and  I 
have  not  compared  them — it  is  one  of  the  strongest  arguments  to  show  that  the  decision 
of  the  court  was  wrong,  and  that  the  words  of  the  Constitution  ought  to  have  received 
the  interpretation  of  the  prior  words,  instead  of  the  prior  words  receiving  the  interpre 
tation  of  the  latter. 

I  do  not  intend  to  controvert  the  right  of  the  gentleman  to  take 
an  appeal  from  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  but  I  do  not 
know  where  he  can  find  any  revisory  power  at  present. 

Again,  on  the  i8th,  iQth  and  22nd  of  July,  the  same  subject  was  debated — on  the 
last  named  date  Mr.  HALE  was  about  to  address  the  Senate,  but  yielded  to  Mr.  COR 
WIN,  who  said  : 

I  wish  to  submit  to  any  member  of  the  committee  one  or  two 
questions  to  which  it  is  very  desirable  to  myself,  and  I  dare  say  to 
many  others,  that  a  reply  should  be  given  before  we  are  called  upon 
to  vote  on  this  bill.  The  bill,  with  what  propriety  I  will  not  under 
take  to  say,  has  been  described  by  the  honorable  chairman  of  the 
committee,  as  a  Compromise  Bill.  It  will  be  in  the  recollection  of 
every  Senator,  that  during  the  discussion  upon  the  Oregon  bill, 
which  gave  rise  to  the  proposition  that  laws  should  be  made  for  all 
these  Territories  together,  there  was  one  point  of  law  discussed  by 
several  gentlemen  on  both  sides  of  the  Chamber.  The  honorable 
Senator  from  South  Carolina,  if  I  did  not  misunderstand  him,  main 
tained,  that  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  it  was  incom 
petent  for  Congress  to  enact  that  Slavery  should  not  exist  in  the  Ter 
ritories  ;  and  that  it  was  equally  incompetent  for  any  territorial  gov 
ernment  of  any  sort  that  might  be  erected  there  to  make  such  a  law. 


TERRITORIAL   GOVERNMENT   OP   OREGON.  321 

I  understood  my  honorable  friend  from  Georgia  on  my  left  [MR. 
BERRIEN]  to  maintain  the  same  proposition,  in  the  same  identical 
terms.  Now,  I  supposed,  that  after  that  discussion,  when  the  whole 
question  had  been  submitted  to  this  committee,  constituted  chiefly 
of  gentlemen  learned  in  the  law,  they  must  have  revolved  in  their 
minds  and  discussed  in  their  retirement  this  fundamental  proposition 
lying  at  the  bottom  of  all  our  action.  I  did  expect — though  per 
haps  I  was  wrong  in  entertaining  that  anticipation — that  we  should 
have  had  a  detailed  report  from  that  committee,  resolving  that  radi 
cal  question  for  the  benefit  of  Senators  who  might  not  be  able,  in 
consequence  of  their  not  being  learned  in  the  law,  to  give  to  the 
proposition  that  degree  of  attention  which  it  deserved.  If  it  be 
true,  as  was  maintained  by  my  friend  from  Georgia — for  whose  legal 
acquirements  I  entertain  so  much  respect  that  I  can  scarcely  trust 
myself  to  differ  from  him — that  Congress  can  make  no  such  law, 
why,  then,  I  presume  that  the  objection  urged  by  the  Senator  from 
Connecticut,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Chamber,  falls  to  the  ground. 
I  rise,  then,  for  the  purpose  of  asking  of  the  learned  gentlemen  who 
were  occupied  so  assiduously  for  some  days  in  the  examination  of 
this  important  question,  and  who  must  have  known,  before  they 
retired,  that  if  this  grand  obstacle  could  be  removed,  we  should  have 
no  difficulty  at  all  in  passing  such  a  bill,  whether  they  made  any 
investigation  on  that  point?  and  if  so,  whether  they  are  at  liberty  to 
disclose  the  result  of  it  to  the  Senate? 

Again :  I  wish  to  be  informed  from  these  gentlemen  learned  in 
the  law — for  I  have  not  turned  my  attention  to  the  particular  statu 
tory  provisions  on  this  point — how  it  is  that  an  appeal  and  writ  of 
error  shall  lie  from  the  superior  judicial  tribunal  established  in  the 
Territories  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  ?  The  gentle 
men  of  the  committee  having,  as  I  supposed,  very  sedulously 
directed  their  attention  to  the  subject  which  divides  us  here — the 
subject  of  Slavery — I  wish  to  know  whether,  when  this  law  comes  to 
be  put  in  operation,  the  committee  have  found  with  certainty  that 
the  question  of  Slavery,  as  it  is  usually  brought  up  in  courts,  can  be 
brought  by  a  writ  of  error  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  without  some  specific  legislation  ?  For  instance :  I  believe 
that  in  the  law  which  regulates  writs  of  error  and  appeals  from  the 
Circuit  Courts  of  the  United  States  to  the  Supreme  Court,  it  is  pro 
vided  that  the  value  of  the  thing  in  controversy  must  be  at  least  two 
thousand  dollars,  exclusive  of  costs.  I  have  been  told,  informally, 
22 


322  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

that  the  provision  in  this  bill,  allowing  writs  of  error  and  appeal,  was 
made  to  satisfy  any  gentleman  that  it  was  the  intention  of  the  com 
mittee  to  withdraw  this  controversy  about  the  power  of  Congress  to 
make  laws  for  the  Territories  from  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
— to  withdraw  this  constitutional  question,  in  other  words,  from  Con 
gress,  and  submit  it  to  the  judicial  tribunals  of  the  country.  Now, 
if  that  be  so,  and  if  that  would  be  the  effect  of  the  bill  in  case  it 
were  enacted,  I  wish  to  know,  if  a  man  go  into  one  of  these  Terri 
tories  with  a  slave,  whether  the  object  of  the  bill  is  to  raise  the  ques 
tion  whether  that  sort  of  property,  without  law,  can  be  carried  into 
a  Territory  where  there  is  no  law,  and  if  so,  how  it  is  to  be  carried 
into  effect?  Under  the  existing  law,  I  suppose  the  slave  would  ask 
a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  and  require  his  master  to  produce  him  in 
court,  and  show  the  cause  of  his  capture  and  detention  before  one 
of  these  territorial  judges.  The  territorial  judge,  according  to  this 
bill,  is  to  be  appointed  by  the  present  Chief  Magistrate  of  the 
United  States — a  fact  which  I  beg  to  mention  for  the  information  of 
gentlemen  north  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  This  judge  will  decide, 
if  he  believe  the  constitutional  law  to  be  as  the  gentlemen  from 
South  Carolina  and  Georgia  maintain,  that  the  master  has  a  right  to 
the  services  of  the  slave,  who  will  be  accordingly  remanded  into  the 
service  of  his  master.  That  is  the  way  in  which  the  case  elaborates 
itself  into  a  judgment,  and  how  it  is  proposed  to  bring  it  before  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  so  that  it  may  be  decided  by 
the  highest  judicial  tribunal  in  America.  How  is  it  to  come  here? 
Is  the  property  in  controversy  of  the  value  of  two  thousand  dollars? 
What  is  the  value  of  a  slave?  My  learned  friend  from  Georgia 
smiles.  Perhaps  I  may  not  be  so  familiar  as  he  is  with  the  value  of 
that  kind  of  property.  But  if  he  can  listen  to  me  with  the  gravity 
which  I  think  the  subject  demands 

Mr.  BERRIEN,  (in  his  seat) — The  gentleman  is  entirely  mistaken. 

I  withdraw  the  remark.  How  is  the  value  of  a  slave  to  be 
ascertained  ?  We  are  told  that  there  is  no  property  in  the  man,  but 
simply  a  claim  to  his  services.  What,  then,  is  the  value  of  his  ser 
vices  ?  It  may  be  more  or  less,  according  to  the  judgment  of  men ; 
but  very  few  slaves,  I  believe,  sell  for  a  thousand  dollars.  If,  then, 
the  value  of  the  slave  do  not  reach  two  thousand  dollars,  his  fate  is 
decided  by  this  judge  appointed  by  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  who  sits  in  his  court  fifteen  hundred  miles  from  Washington 
City.  This  is  the  final  judgment. 


TERRITORIAL    GOVERNMENT    OF    OREGON. 


323 


I  may  be  wrong  in  all  this.  But  certainly,  as  the  law  now 
stands,  if  such  a  case  come  within  the  category  of  the  bill  before  us, 
I  have  difficulty  in  perceiving  how  it  can  be  brought  here.  I  say 
nothing  now  of  the  great  advantages  that  will  accrue  to  the  slave 
population  which  may  be  carried  there,  in  consequence  of  their  hav 
ing  such  an  easy  and  facile  method  of  bringing  their  case  before  the 
Supreme  Court ;  nor  of  the  perfect  equality  between  them  and  their 
master  as  respects  the  giving  of  the  requisite  security  for  costs ;  nor 
of  the  ease  with  which  they  can  attend  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  after  a  journey  of  fifteen  hundred  miles  during  the 
winter,  to  hear  the  decision  of  that  tribunal  as  to  whether  Cuffee  or 
his  master  is  right  in  the  matter !  But  it  does  seem  to  me  that  there 
is  here  an  anomaly  worth  looking  at  about  the  noon  of  the  nine 
teenth  century.  I  do  not  rise,  however,  to  discuss  the  question,  but 
simply  to  ask  the  learned  gentleman  from  Vermont,  or  any  other 
gentleman  who  has  given  attention  to  this  legal  question,  to  favor  me 
with  a  reply  to  those  interrogatories  which  I  have  now  respectfully 
submitted.  I  should  also  be  very  happy  to  be  informed  as  to  the 
amount  of  population  in  l/pper  California,  and  in  that  described  in 
this  bill  as  New  Mexico.  I  believe  we  have  pretty  accurate  statistics 
in  relation  to  the  population  of  Oregon.  But  I  am  somewhat  at  a 
loss  to  know  why  a  distinction  has  been  made  between  Oregon  and 
the  territories  of  California  and  New  Mexico.  I  should  be  very 
happy  to  know  why  the  people  of  Oregon  have  been  regarded  as 
capable  of  making  their  own  laws,  while  the  people  of  California 
and  New  Mexico  have  been  deemed  incapable. 

Mr.  CLAYTON — The  committee  thought,  in  view  of  all  the  facts,  that  the  people 
of  California  and  New  Mexico  were  not  now  in  that  state  which  fitted  them  to  elect  a 
delegate  to  Congress,  or  a  territorial  legislature.  The  gentleman,  as  a  northwestern 
man,  knows  that  many  of  our  territories,  in  the  first  instance,  had  just  such  a  form  of 
government  extended  over  them  as  is  proposed  in  this  bill  for  California  and  New  Mex 
ico.  The  next  stage  of  territorial  organization  we  have  given  to  Oregon,  and  I  think 
my  friend  from  Ohio  must  admit  that  the  character  of  the  population  of  New  Mexico 
renders  them  utterly  unfit  for  self-government. 

Will  the  Senator  from  Delaware  allow  me  to  ask  another  ques 
tion?  Why  does  he  consider  the  people  of  New  Mexico  unfit  for 
self-government  ? 

Mr.  CLAYTON — They  are  entirely  too  ignorant,  and  the  gentleman  probably  knows 
that  as  well  as  I  do. 


ON  THE  CLAYTON  COMPROMISE  BILL. 


ON  the  24th  July,  1848,  Mr.  CORWIN  addressed  the  Senate  at  length  upon  the 
Compromise  Bill  reported  by  Mr.  CLAYTON  from  the  Committee  of  Eight.  Mr.  COR 
WIN  said: 

MR.  PRESIDENT: 

I  should  scarcely  undertake  to  assign  to  the  Senate  a  reason  for 
prolonging  this  debate,  especially  after  the  very  elaborate  and  lucid 
exposition  of  the  bill  now  before  us,  which  has  been  given  by  the 
Senator  from  Vermont ;  I  feel  compelled,  however,  from  various  con 
siderations,  with  which  I  will  not  trouble  the  Senate,  to  state,  in  very 
few  words,  if  that  be  possible,  what  my  objections  are  to  the  passage 
of  the  bill ;  and  it  may  be,  to  offer  some  few  observations  in  reply  to 
such  propositions  as  have  been  announced  at  various  times  during 
this  debate,  by  Senators  on  the  other  side  of  the  Chamber.  I  have 
listened  with  great  eagerness,  since  the  commencement  of  this  dis 
cussion,  to  everything  that  has  been  said,  with  the  most  sincere  and 
unfeigned  desire  to  make  myself  acquainted  with  at  least  the  pri 
mary  elements  and  principles  which  enter  into  the  composition  of 
the  bill.  And,  I  think  I  may  say,  without  exposing  myself  to  the 
charge  of  egotism,  that  I  feel  as  little  the  influences  which  have  been 
spoken  of  by  the  Senator  from  Vermont  as  it  is  desirable  that  any 
gentleman,  acting  in  the  capacity  of  a  legislator,  should  feel.  I  do 
not  participate,  however  I  may  advertise  gentlemen,  in  the  belief 
which  has  been  so  constantly  expressed  during  this  discussion,  that 
this  is  a  subject  which  is  likely  to  produce  that  terrible  and  momen 
tous  excitement  that  is  spoken  of.  I  believe  if  this  principle  were 
discussed  solemnly,  and,  so  to  speak,  abstractedly  from  those  extrane 
ous  circumstances  too  frequently  adverted  to  here,  that  we  should  be 
much  more  likely  to  arrive  at  a  satisfactory  conclusion  to  ourselves, 
and  at  more  satisfactory  results,  I  hope,  to  those  who  are  to  come 
after  us.  I  have  no  belief  that  the  passage  of  a  lawr  such  as  is  now 

before  the  Senate,   will  produce  a  disruption  of  the  bonds  that  hold 

(324) 


ON    THE    CLAYTON    COMPROMISE    BILL.  325 

this  Union  together.  I  have  no  belief  that  the  passage  of  the  law 
so  much  deprecated  by  some  gentlemen  on  this  side,  by  the  name, 
if  you  please,  of  the  "  Wilmot  Proviso,"  could,  by  any  possibility 
whatever,  induce  the  Southern  portion  of  the  Union,  which,  we  are 
told,  is  so  much  excited  on  the  subject,  to  tear  themselves  asunder 
from  the  Constitutional  compact  by  which  we  are  all  held  together. 
Sir,  if  I  entertained  an  opinion  of  this  kind,  I  should  scarcely  think 
a  seat  on  this  floor  worth  possessing  for  a  single  day.  I  do  not 
think  the  technical  term  spoken  of  by  the  Senator  from  Vermont, 
the  "Wilmot  Proviso,"  can  of  itself  exercise  that  influence  upon 
statesmen  of  exalted  intellect  of  the  South,  which  has  been  inti 
mated  by  gentlemen  who  have  participated  in  this  debate.  What  js 
this  terrible  Wilmot  Proviso,  that  has  been  erected  here  and  else 
where  into  such  a  raw-head  and  bloody-bones,  to  use  a  very  express 
ive  j^rase  of  the  nursery?  What  is  it?  Why,  sir,  there  are  about 
me  Senators  who  know  very  well  to  whom  the  paternity  of  the 
"Wilmot  Proviso,"  as  it  has  been  recently  baptized,  belonged.  They 
know  that  the  same  gentleman  who  drafted  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence,  which  is  hung  up  in  our  halls  and  placed  in  our  libraries, 
and  regarded  with  the  same  reverence  as  our  Bible — for  it  has 
become  a  Gospel  of  Freedom  all  over  the  world  as  well  as  in  this 
country — drafted  that  which  is  called  the  "Wilmot  Proviso,"  com 
posing,  as  it  did,  a  section  of  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  and  that  the 
hand  that  drafted  both  was  Jefferson's.  There  have  been  some 
strange  misnomers  in  regard  to  acts,  some  strange  confusion  of 
noniej}clatur£_.  in  this  country,  as  in  this  case,  when  a  part  of  the 
Ordinance  of  1787  has  come  to  bear  the  appellation  of  the  "Wilmot 
Proviso."  Sir,  much  as  I  respect  that  gentleman  for  his  position 
upon  this  subject,  which  has  connected  his  very  name  with  the  Ordi 
nance  of  1787,  I  deny  to  him  the  honor  of  originating  it.  It  is  a 
piracy  of  the  copyright.  I  do  not  see  that  there  is  any  danger  that 
Southern  gentlemen,  after  the  lapse  of  so  many  years,  and  after  the 
founding  of  a  young  empire  in  the  West,  by  virtue  of  that  Ordi 
nance,  will  so  desecrate  the  memory  of  Jefferson  and  spit  on  his 
grave,  because  we  merely  re-enact  that  Ordinance  over  a  Territory 
which  has  subsequently  come  into  our  possession.  I  have  no  idea 
that  such  consequences  will  follow  from  the  passage  of  such  a  law, 
as  gentlemen  have  predicted.  There  must  have  been  a  strange  revo 
lution  wrought  in  the  minds  of  Southern  gentlemen  between  1787 
and  1847,  if  such  consequences  are  to  follow.  And  I  could  not  help 


326  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

observing  while  the  Senator  from  Vermont  was  expressing  these 
noble  sentiments,  which  everybody,  even  those  who  do  not  feel  them 
must  admire,  telling  us  we  should  act  here  independently  of  the 
excitement  without  these  walls,  and  that  we  should  scorn  those  news 
paper  paragraphs  in  which  we  are  vilified,  written  by  those  who  know 
little  of  the  motives  by  which  we  are  influenced,  and  who  care  less ;  I 
could  not  help  observing  that  at  last  the  Senator  admonished  us  that 
there  was  an  excitement  abroad  which  we  must  allay ;  and  to  do  that, 
he  agreed  to  this  bill,  although  it  was  somewhat  different  from  that 
which  he  desired — so  that  the  lion-hearted  Senator  from  Vermont 
has  agreed  to  this  Compromise,  as  it  is  called,  because  there  is  an 
excitement  which  he  wishes  to  allay  by  it.  Sir,  I  desire  to  see  gen 
tlemen  act  and  vote  here  as  if  there  were  no  excitement  on  the  sub 
ject.  I  should  be  very  sorry,  at  least  to  allow  any  influences  to 
operate  upon  my  deliberate  judgment,  except  those  which  belong  to 
the  relation  of  representative  and  constituent.  It  is  the  farthest  from 
my  intention  of  anything  that  can  be  conceived  of  to  say  anything 
in  regard  to  this  bill  which  may  wound  the  feelings  of  gentlemen 
who  have  labored  so  hard  to  produce  something  that  would  satisfy 
us  all.  The  Senator  from  Vermont  has  acted  as  he  should  have 
acted,  has  acted  nobly  in  relation  to  this  matter,  and  I  know  very 
well  that  he  will  be  willing  to  accord  to  me  the  same  rule  of  action, 
the  same  independence  that  he  has  used;  and  I  fear,  when  I  come  to 
speak  of  the  bill,  I  shall  be  under  the  necessity  of  availing  myself  of 
what  the  gentleman  has  called  a  "special  demurrer;"  for  I  do  not 
think  there  is  such  pressing  necessity  for  the  passage  of  the  bill,  as 
to  oblige  us  to  forego  the  statement  of  such  objections  as  we  may 
entertain.  Suppose  you  enact  no  law,  what  will  happen  ?  Oregon 
has  for  many  years  taken  care  of  herself,  and  I  believe,  on  one  or 
two  occasions,  made  better  laws  for  herself  than  she  is  likely  to  get 
at  our  hands.  She  has  taken  care  of  herself  ever  since  she  became 
an  integral  portion  of  the  Union,  by  the  settlement  of  the  dispute 
between  us  and  Great  Britain.  How  the  new  provinces  may  fare, 
what  may  happen  to  New  Mexico  and  California  in  the  intermediate 
time  which  will  elapse,  if  we  should  not  be  able  to  act  upon  this 
matter  at  the  present  session,  is  not  a  matter  of  much  concern  or 
apprehension  with  me,  because  I  know  they  have  been  in  your  cus 
tody  for  a  year  or  two,  and  have  not  complained  at  all  for  the  want 
of  legal  enactments ;  they  have  only  complained  that  you  have  made 
too  free  use  of  gunpowder.  Rather  than  not  act  in  the  matter  fully 


ON    THE    CLAYTON    COMPROMISE    BILL.  327 

and  definitely,  as  I  would  if  there  were  no  emergency,  I  would  allow 
those  provinces  to  take  care  of  themselves  for  another  twelve  months 
and  come  here  at  the  beginning  of  a  new  session,  ready  to  act  upon 
the  subject  as  my  judgment  should  dictate. 

Now,  sir,  in  the  first  place,  I  understand  we  have  a  message 
from  the  President,  although  I  believe  it  has  not  been  adverted  to  by 
any  one,  calling  upon  us  to  designate  the  boundaries  of  these  terri 
tories  of  New  Mexico  and  California ;  and  another  branch  of  the 
Legislature  has  been  anxiously  looking  to  the  geography  of  those 
countries,  and  tracing  their  history,  and  are  as  yet  incapable  of  deter 
mining  where  Texas  ends  and  New  Mexico  begins ;  and  they  have 
been  under  the  necessity  of  applying  to  the  Chief  Magistrate  to  give 
them  a  lesson  in  geography.  What  the  substance  of  the  information 
they  have  received  was  I  do  not  know,  but  I  have  been  informed, 
upon  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  that  Texas  extends  to  the  banks  of  the 
Rio  Grande. 

If  this  be  so,  I  must  be  permitted  to  look  to  the  gentlemen  of 
the  committee  for  information  as  to  how  much  is  left  for  New  Mex 
ico,  what  extent  of  territory,  and  what  amount  of  population  ?  Is 
it  worth  while  to  establish  a  Territorial  Government  there,  if  it  be 
true  that  Texas  extends  to  the  Rio  Grande  ?  I  think  it  will  be  found 
that  there  will  be  but  a  fragrant  of  New  Mexico  left,  so  far  as  popu 
lation  is  concerned.  It  will  be  very  convenient,  perhaps,  to  attach 
it  to  the  Government  of  California.  If  you  send  your  Governors 
and  other  officers  there  without  establishing  the  boundaries,  there 
will  be  a  conflict  of  territorial  jurisdiction.  Is  it  not  expedient  to 
settle  it  now,  when  you  are  founding  new  Governments  there,  and 
placing  side  by  side  institutions  which  may  be  very  dissimilar  ?__  It  is 
perfectly  certain  that  Texas  will  extend  her  laws  to  the  Rio  Grande ; 
and  if  she  does,  she  will  comprehend  within  her  jurisdiction  a  large 
proportion  of  the  population  of  what  was  formerly  New  Mexico. 
Here,  then,  is  my  special  demurrer.  Under  other  circumstances,  I 
am  sure  the  Senator  from  Vermont  would  agree  with  me  that  it  is 
indispensable  to  the  Governments  which  we  are  about  to  establish 
that  the  limits  of  their  jurisdiction  should  be  defined,  although  I  do 
not  know  that  this  would  be  an  insuperable  objection  with  me,  if  the 
other  portions  of  the  bill  were  such  as  I  could  give  my  assent  to. 

And  now  I  intend,  in  a  few  words,  to  state  why  I  object  to  this 
Compromise  Bill.  Sir,  there  is  no  one — there  can  be  no  one — who 
does  not  desire  that  every  subject  of  legislation  which  comes  before 


328  SPEECHES    OP   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

the  Senate  should  be  settled  harmoniously,  and,  if  it  might  be  so, 
with  the  unanimous  concurrence  of  every  Senator.  But,  sir,  in  my 
judgment,  with  this  subject  as  it  stands  before  us,  it  would  be  arro 
gant  presumption  to  undertake  to  vote  upon  this  bill  with  a  question 
before  us  which  we  undertake  to  transfer  to  the  Judiciary  Depart 
ment  of  the  country.  How  is  this?  Is  it  not  a  new  thing  in  your 
legislation,  when  a  system  of  policy  is  proposed,  and  the  constitu 
tional  propriety  of  that  policy  is  questioned,  to  pass  an  act  for  the 
purpose  of  getting  a  case  before  the  Supreme  Court,  that  that  Court 
may  instruct  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  as  to  constitutional 
duty  in  the  matter?  Sir,  if  we  know  certainly  what  that  law  will  be, 
need  there  be  any  hesitancy  how  we  shall  vote  upon  this  bill  ?  Can 
any  one  suppose  that  the  Senator  from  Georgia,  or  the  Senator  from 
South  Carolina,  if  they  believed  that  the  litigation  that  is  proposed 
by  this  bill  to  be  brought  into  the  Judicial  tribunals  of  the  country 
would  result  contrary  to  their  determination  of  what  the  law  should 
be,  that  they  would  be  in  favor  of  such  a  bill  as  this?  Does  any 
one  believe  that  if  the  Senator  from  Vermont  could  anticipate  that 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  might  decide  that  Congress, 
being  silent  upon  the  subject,  had  allowed  Slavery  to  pass,  at  its 
pleasure,  into  these  newly-acquired  territories,  and  to  become  part  of 
the  municipal  institutions  of  these  territories,  and  to  decide,  also, 
that  if  Congress  had  enacted  a  prohibitory  law,  it  could  not  have 
gone  there,  he  would  vote  for  this  bill  ?  Certainly  he  would  not.  Is 
there  any  necessity  that  there  should  be  a  prohibitory  law  passed,  in 
order  that  the  question  of  Slavery  should  be  presented  with  the  aid 
of  Congressional  legislation  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  ?  I  will  not  undertake  to  say  that  I  differ  with  the  Senator 
from  Vermont  in  a  single  legal  proposition  that  he  has  laid  down.  I 
regard  Slavery  as  a  local  institution.  I  believe  it  rests  on  that  basis, 
as  the  only  one  that  can  give  it  a  moment's  security.  I  believe  it 
can  not  be  carried,  by  the  power  of  the  master  over  his  servant,  one 
inch  beyond  the  territorial  limits  of  the  power  that  makes  the  law. 
I  believe  that  a  slave  carried  by  his  master  into  the  territory  about 
which  we  are  talking,  if  Slavery  be  abolished  there,  will  be  free  from 
the  moment  he  enters  the  territory,  and  any  attempt  to  exercise 
power  over  him  as  a  slave  will  be  nugatory.  That  is  my  judgment. 
But  I  would  guard  against  any  doubt  on  this  aubject.  I  would  so 
act  that  there  should  be  nothing  left  undone  on  my  part  to  prevent 
the  admission  of  slaves,  for  I  am  free  to  declare  that  if  you  were  to 


ON    THE    CLAYTON    COMPROMISE    BILL.  329 

acquire  the  country  that  lies  under  the  line,  the  hottest  country  to  be 
found  on  the  globe,  where  the  white  man  is  supposed  not  to  be  able 
to  work,  I  would  not  allow  you  to  take  slaves  there,  if  Slavery  did 
not  exist  there  already.  More  than  that,  I  would  abolish  it  if  I  could, 
if  it  did  exist.  These  are  my  opinions,  and  they  always  have  been  / 
the  same.  I  know  they  were  the  opinions  of  Washington  up  to  the 
hour  of  his  death ;  and  they  were  the  opinions  of  Jefferson  and  of 
others,  who,  in  the  infancy  of  the  institution,  saw  and  deplored  its 
evils,  and  deprecated  it  continuance,  and  would  have  taxed  them 
selves  to  the  utmost  to  exterminate  it  then.  I  possess  no  opinion  on 
the  subject  that  I  have  not  derived  from  these  sources. 

I  have  only  to  say  that  these  opinions  have  always  received  the 
concurrence  of  my  own  understanding,  and  this  after  the  most  care 
ful  investigation  I  have  been  able  to  give  the  subject.  I  find  the 
institution  of  Slavery  existing  in  several  States  of  the  Union — it  is  a 
local,  a  State  institution,  existing  under  the  guarantees  of  the  Con 
stitution.  I  find  that,  as  a  legislator  of  this  National  Government,  I 
am  forbidden  by  the  Constitution  to  act  upon  this  or  any  other 
merely  State  institution.  I  can  not,  therefore,  interfere  with  Slavery 
in  the  States  as  I  can  in  a  Territory,  where,  as  yet,  no  State  sov 
ereignty  exists,  and  as  I  will  there,  and  would  everywhere  else  on 
the  face  of  the  earth,  where  I  am  not  forbidden,  and  where  my 
power  might  extend.  And  here,  sir,  I  ask,  what  has  been  your 
practice  as  a  Government  on  this  subject  ?  If  at  any  time  in  your 
progress,  since  1789,  you  have  acquired  territory  where  slavery 
existed  in  such  form  and  consistency  as  to  make  it  now  difficult  to 
overthrow  it,  it  has  been  permitted,  only  permitted,  to  remain  where 
by  law  it  did  exist;  as  in  the  Northwestern  Territory  before  1789, 
but  had  not  taken  deep  root,  it  was  expelled,  and  as  in  the  Missouri 
Compromise,  excluding  it  in  all  territory  north  of  latitude  36°  30', 
after  1789. 

When  Louisiana  was  acquired,  such  was  the  tone  of  public 
opinion  then  against  Slavery  that  I  am  sure  the  men  of  that  day  would 
have  abolished  it  there  but  for  the  supposed  evil  of  displacing  a  sys 
tem  long-established,  on  which  and  by  which  the  social  and  political 
systems  of  the  country  were  necessarily  formed.  Perhaps,  also,  the 
terms  of  the  treaty  were  with  some  an  obstacle.  The  same  men  who 
directed  public  opinion  in  1787  in  a  great  measure  controlled  it  in 
1804.  Jefferson,  who  was  the  author  of  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  j(jJ&c» 
was  President  in  1804,  when  Louisiana  was  acquired.  By  his  influ- 


330  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

ence,  the  ordinance  of  1787  made  five  free  States  in  the  northwest,  and 
I  doubt  not  Louisiana  would  have  been  also  freed  from  slavery  too 
but  for  the  reasons  I  have  assigned.  Such  were  the  views  of  men 
who  directed  public  opinion  then;  would  to  God  they,  or  such  as 
they,  had  more  to  do  with  public  opinion  now. 

When  the  ample  patrimony  of  Virginia  was  transferred  to  the 
Confederacy,  Jefferson,  and  those  of  his  school,  who  made  this  noble 
donation,  at  once  declared  that  Slavery  should  not  pollute  the  soil  of 
five  rich  and  powerful  new  States.  Such  was  Virginian,  such  was 
American  opinion  then.  I  cannot  suppose  the  opinions  of  these 
men  were  so  changed  between  1787  and  1804,  that  Slavery,  at  the 
latter  period,  would  be  spared  by  them,  except  for  the  reasons  I 
have  assigned  already.  Liberty,  perfect  freedom  to  all  men,  of  all 
colors  and  nations,  was  the  doctrine  of  Jefferson  then,  and  I  am  told 
he  is  now  the  authoritative  expounder  of  free  principles  to  the  school 
calling  itself  "Virginian"  as  well  as  "Democratic." 

Why,  there  is  scarcely  a  Virginian  who  ventures  to  have  an 
opinion  contrary  to  the  lightest  thought  that  he  ever  expressed. 
And  is  it  so,  that  we  are  now  to  be  required,  for  the  sake  of  some 
imaginary  balance  of  power,  to  carry  Slavery  into  a  country  where  it 
does  not  now  exist?  That,  sir,  is  the  question  propounded  by  this 
bill.  The  Senator  from  Vermont  is  satisfied  that  Slavery  cannot  fce 
extended  to  these  Territories.  I  believe,  if  his  confidence  in  the 
judicial  tribunals  of  the  country  were  well  founded,  that  Slavery 
could  not  possibly  go  into  these  Territories,  provided  the  Senate  is 
right  both  as  to  law  and  the  facts.  I  ask  every  member  of  the  Sen 
ate — perhaps  I  may  be  less  informed  than  any — whether  Slavery 
does  not  exist,  by  some  Mexican  law,  at  this  hour,  in  California. 

Mr.  Hannegan  (in  his  seat). — It  does  exist.     Peon  Slavery  exists  there. 

I  would  thank  the  Senator  from  Indiana  if  he  will  inform  me 
what  Peon  Slavery  is ;  and  really  I  ask  the  question  for  the  purpose 
of  obtaining  information.  I  desire  to  know  its  conditions.  Is  it 
transmissible  by  inheritance  ?  Does  the  marvelous  doctrine  of  which 
the  honorable  Senator  from  Virginia  spoke,  as  being  part  and  parcel 
of  the  law  adopted  in  Virginia — partus  scquitur  ventrem — prevail  ?  Is 
that  holy  ordinance,  that  the  offspring  of  the  womb  of  her  who  is  a 
slave  must  necessarily  be  slaves  also,  there  recognized  ? 

Mr.  Hannegan. — As  I  understand,  slavery  exists  in  California  and  New  Mexico,  as 
it  does  throughout  the  Republic  of  Mexico,  and  is  termed  Peon  Slavery — slavery 


ON    THE    CLAYTON    COMPROMISE    BILL.  331 

for  debt,  by  which  the  creditor  has  a  right  to  hold  the  debtor,  through  all  time,  in  a  far 
more  absolute  bondage  than  that  by  which  any  Southern  planter  holds  his  slaves  here. 

So  it  has  been  described  to  me.  I  have  not  seen  the  Mexican 
laws  upon  the  subject ;  but  the  statement  just  made  agrees  with  that 
of  many  gentlemen  who  profess  to  know  something  on  the  subject, 
and  therefore  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  it  is  so,  and  that  these  peo 
ple  are  the  subjects  of  that  infernal  law.  The  Senator  from  Dela 
ware,  the  other  day,  informed  us  that  the  committee  have  not  given 
to  the  people  of  California  and  New  Mexico  the  right  of  suffrage, 
because  they  were  incapable  of  exercising  it — because  a  large  por 
tion  of  them  were  of  the  colored  races.  Now,  supposing  that  to  be 
the  case,  and  supposing  the  proposition  to  be  submitted  to  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States — was  Slavery  an  institution  of 
New  Mexico? — what  would  be  the  answer?  If  the  Senator  from 
Indiana  were  there  to  make  response,  he  would  reply  in  the  affirma 
tive  ;  he  would  say  that  the  institution  of  Slavery  was  there ;  that,  to 
be  sure,  it  had  its  modifications  and  peculiarities,  but  that  it  was  still 
Slavery,  though  there  might  not  have  existed  a  law  as  strong  as  that 
glorious  principle  of  free  government  spoken  of  by  the  Senator  from 
Virginia — -partus  sequitur  ventrem.  If,  sir,  these  three  Latin  words 
can  condemn  to  everlasting  Slavery  the  posterity  of  a  woman  who  is 
a  slave,  may  not  that  municipal  regulation  of  which  we  are  now 
speaking  in  California  and  New  Mexico,  with  equal  propriety,  be 
denominated  Slavery  ?  I  find,  then,  Slavery,  as  it  is  called,  existing 
here  to  a  degree,  and  to  all  practical  purposes,  as  lasting  and  inexor 
able  as  in  the  State  of  Virginia;  and,  therefore,  the  whole  of  the 
hypothesis  of  the  gentleman  from  Vermont  falls  to  the  ground  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  inasmuch  as  the  Supreme  Court  will  decide  that  Slav 
ery  existed  there,  and  that,  therefore,  the  whole  slave  population  of 
the  United  States  may  be  transferred  to  that  country. 

Mr.  PHELPS — The  gentleman  will  excuse  me — I  spoke  of  African  Slavery. 

Of  that  I  am  aware.  I  speak  now  of  the  general  proposition. 
Now,  this  is  a  very  curious  spectacle  presented  this  day  and  for 
weeks  past  in  the  American  Congress,  and  one  cannot  help  pausing 
at  this  point,  and  reflecting  upon  the  events  of  the  last  few  years. 
On  looking  back  at  what  has  happened  in  that  period,  I  am  sure  that 
the  magnanimous  spirit  of  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina  himself 
will  be  obliged  to  concede  to  the  Northern  States  at  least  some  apol 
ogy  for  the  slight  degree  of  excitement  on  this  subject.  His 


332  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

hypothesis  is,  that  to  every  portion  of  this  newly-acquired  territory 
— California  not  excepted — every  slaveholder  in  the  United  States 
has  a  right  to  migrate  to-morrow,  and  carry  with  him  his  slaves — 
holding  them  there  forever,  subject  only  to  the  abolition  of  Slavery 
when  these  Territories  shall  be  made  into  States,  and  come  into  the 
Union.  What,  then,  would  be  those  few  chapters  in  our  history? 
We  find  ourselves  now  in  the  possession  of  Territories  with  a  popu 
lation  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  souls,  if  I  am  correctly 
informed,  in  California  and  New  Mexico.  The  best  authenticated 
history  of  the  social  institutions  of  that  population  informs  us  that 
there  exists  there,  at  this  moment,  a  species  of  Slavery  as  absolute 
and  inexorable  as  exists  anywhere  on  the  face  of  the  earth ;  and  that 
about  five  in  six  of  the  population  of  that  country  are  subjected  to 
the  iron  rule  of  this  abominable  institution  there. 

Now,  I  do  not  expect  that  any  man  will  rise  up  and  say,  that 
because  an  individual  happens  to  be  the  debtor  of  another,  he  shall 
have  his  own  person  sold  into  Slavery ;  and  not  only  that,  but  that 
the  curse  shall  extend — \vprse  than  that  of  the  Hebrew,  not  to  the 
third  and  fourth  generation,  but  to  the  remotest  posterity  of  that 
unfortunate  man.  Nobody  will  pretend  to  rise  up  in  defense  of  such 
a  proposition  as  that.  Now,  then,  I  will  give  over  the  criticism. 
Suppose  there  is  a  law  in  New  Mexico  which  obliges  a  man  to  work 
all  the  days  of  his  life  for  another,  because  he  happens  to  owe  him 
five  dollars,  by  some  means  contrived  by  the  creditor  to  keep  him 
always  his  debtor.  Do  you  intend  that  that  law  shall  exist  there 
for  an  hour?  Well,  you  have  made  a  law  here,  that  your  law 
makers  who  are  to  go  to  New  Mexico  and  California  shall  not  touch 
the  subject  of  Slavery;  and  if  that  which  is  designated,  in  the  popu 
lar  language  of  that  country,  Slavery,  exists  there,  do  you  indeed 
send  abroad,  as  you  promised  to  do,  you  missionary  of  liberty? 
You  went  there  with  the  sword,  and  made  it  red  in  the  blood  of 
these  people!  What  did  you  tell  them?  "We  come  to  give  you 
freedom!"  Instead  of  that,  you  enact  in  your  code  here — bloody  as 
that  of  Draco — that  there  shall  be  judges  and  law-givers  over  them, 
but  that  they  shall  make  no  law  touching  that  Slavery  to  which  five 
out  of  six  of  them  are  subjected. 

Mr.  President,  this  chapter  in  your  history  furnishes  instructive 
matter  for  our  consideration.  It  is  a  strange  act  in  the  great  drama 
of  what  we  call  progress.  I  have  looked  upon  it  with  some  concern. 
I  was  one  of  those  who  predicted  that  this,  or  something  like  this, 


ON   THE    CLAYTON    COMPROMISE    BILL.  333 

would  be  the  result  of  your  Mexican  war.  I  always  believed,  not 
withstanding  your  denials  here,  that  you  made  war  upon  Mexico  for 
the  purpose  and  with  the  intention  of  conquest.  I  ventured  to  pre 
dict  just  what  we  now  see,  that  acquisition  of  territory  would  follow 
the  war  as  its  consequence,  and  its  object  was  that  and  nothing  else ; 
and  that  this  very  question  would  arise,  and  arise  here,  to  distract 
your  councils,  disunite  your  people,  and  threaten,  as  we  are  now 
told  it  does,  that  peace  which  you  thought  of  so  lightly  when  war 
was  so  wantonly  waged  against  Mexico.  It  now  seems  your  preten 
sions  were  all  hypocritical  from  the  beginning.  You  said  your 
armed  men  went  forth  to  her  in  the  spirit  of  love.  You  pretended 
their  mission  was  not  conquest,  but  to  set  free  the  captive,  to  raise 
up  .the  prostrate  Peon  of  that  country — and  now  what  follows  ?  As 
soon  as  your  arms  have  subdued  the  country,  the  gentle  note  of  the 
dove  is  changed  to  the  lion's  roar.  Instead  of  the  proper  blessing 
of  peace  to  your  conquered  subjects,  you  propose  to  leave  the 
chains  of  the  Peon  untouched,  and  now  gravely  contend  that  negro 
Slavery  shall  be  superadded  to  Slavery  for  debt.  This  is  your 
improvement,  this  your  progress  in  Mexico.  To  exalt  the  miserable 
Peon,  you  give  him  the  enslaved  negro  for  association  and  example. 
Sir,  this  is  indeed  a  spectacle  worth  noting,  in  this  bright  noon  of 
the  nineteenth  century. 

We  proclaimed  to  the  world  we  would  take  nothing  by  con 
quest.  This  was  our  solemn  hypocritical  declaration  for  two  dark 
years,  while  our  progress  was  marked  by  blood,  whjleJthe__maichjaL 
your  power  was  like  another  people  of  old,  by  clouds  of  smoke  in 
the  day,  and  fire  by  night.  City  after  city  fell  beneath  the  assaults 
of  your  gallant  army,  and  still  you  ceased  not  to  declare  you  would 
take  nothing  by  conquest.  Now  you  say  this  territory  was  con 
quered,  was  acquired  by  the  common  blood  of  our  common  country. 
You  trace  back  the  consideration  which  you  have  paid  for  this  coun 
try  to  the  blood  and  the  bones  of  the  gallant  men  that  you  sent 
there  to  be  sacrificed;  and  pointing  to  the  unburied  corses  of  her 
sons  who  have  fallen  there,  the  South  exclaims — "These,  these  con 
stitute  my  title  to  carry  my  slaves  to  that  land !  It  was  purchased 
by  the  blood  of  my  sons."  The  aged  parent,  bereft  of  his  children, 
and  the  widow  with  the  family  that  remains,  desire  to  go  there  to 
better  their  fortunes,  if  it  may  be,  and  pointing  to  the  graves  of 
husband  and  children,  exclaim,  "There,  there  was  the  price  paid  for 
our  proportion  of  this  territory!"  Is  that  true?  If  that  could  be 


\ 


334  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

made  out — if  you  dare  put  that  upon  your  record — if  you  can  assert 
that  you  hold  the  country  by  the  strong  hand,  then  you  have  a  right 
to  go  there  with  your  slaves.  If  we  of  the  North  have  united  with 
you  of  the  South  in  an  expedition  of  piracy,  and  robbery,  and  mur 
der,  that  oldest  law  known  among  men — "Honesty  among  thieves" 
— requires  us  to  divide  it  with  you  equally. 

If,  indeed,  Mr.  President,  we  have  no  other  right  than  that 
which  force  gives  us  to  these  our  new  possessions;,  if  indeed,  we 
have  slaughtered  fifty  thousand  of  God's  creatures  only  to  subject  to 
our  power  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  of  an  alien,  enslaved  and 
barbarous  people,  it  is  but  a  fitting  finale  to  all  this  to  rivet  yet  closer 
the  chain  of  personal  slavery  upon  the  Mexican  Peon,  and  people 
your  possessions  thus  acquired  by  slaves.  I  repeat,  that  this  right 
of  conquest  applied  to  territory  is  the  same — no  other  and  no  bet 
ter  than  that  by  which  originally  one  man  could  claim  to  hold 
another  in  slavery.  It  is  but  the  right,  if  right  it  may  be  called,  of 
the  strongest — the  law  in  both  cases  is  simply  the  law  of  force. 
You  march  over  a  country,  wrest  it  by  war  from  its  owner,  and  say 
to  the  vanquished  possessor,  this  is  now  mine.  I  have  seized  your 
property;  I  hold  it  by  the  law  of  force.  And  so  originally  the 
slave-dealer  seized  the  negro  in  his  African  home,  slaughtered  in 
combat  part  of  his  family,  bound  the  rest  in  chains,  brought  them 
here  and  sold  them.  It  is  simply  power,  and  not  tight,  in  both  cases, 
that  makes  the  claim.  I  repeat,  it  seems  indeed  fitting  and  in  char 
acter,  that  the  two  should  accompany  each  other. 

As  in  the  case  of  lands  thus  acquired,  long  possession  and  con 
tinued  acquiescence  (in  the  judgments  of  men)  ripen  the  claim  into 
legal  right,  so  in  the  case  of  legal  Slavery,  the  captive,  originally  held 
only  by  force,  in  time,  by  the  law  of  men,  and  by  the  judgment  of 
men,  becomes  property! !  And  we  are  told  by  the  Senator  from  Vir 
ginia  [MR.  MASON]  that  the  posterity  of  such  become  property 
only  through  the  magical  influence  of  these  words,  Roman  words: 
"  Par  tits  sequitur  venttem" — "The  child  follows  the  condition  of  its 
mother."  Admirable — philosophical — rational — Christian  maxim!!! 
If  the  mother  be  captured  in  war,  it  seems  then  the  will  of  a  just 
God,  "whose  tender  mercies  are  over  all  his  works,"  that  her  off 
spring  to  the  remotest  time  shall  be  doomed  to  Slavery.  What  sub 
lime  morality !  what  lovely  justice  combine  to  sanctify  this  article  in 
that  new  decalogue  of  freedom  which  we  say  it  is  our  destiny  to  give 
to  the  world,  "Partus  sequitur  ventrcm!"  Why,  it  is  said  to  be 


ON   THE   CLAYTON   COMPROMISE   BILL.  335 

"common  law."  Alas,  Mr.  President,  it  is  but  too  "common,"  as  we 
see.  This  right  of  conquest  over  land  is  the  same  as  that  by  which 
a  man  may  hold  another  in  bondage.  You  may  make  it  into  a  law 
if  you  please ;  you  may  enact  that  it  may  be  so ;  it  may  be  conven 
ient  to  do  so ;  after  perpetrating  the  original  sin,  it  may  be  well  to 
do  so.  But  the  case  is  not  altered ;  the  source  of  the  right  remains 
unchanged.  What  is  the  meaning  of  the  old  Roman  word  servusl 
I  profess  no  skill  in  philological  learning,  but  I  can  very  well  con 
ceive  how  somebody,  looking  into  this  thing,  might  understand  what 
was  the  law  in  those  days.  The  man's  life  was  saved  when  his 
enemy  conquered  him  in  battle.  He  became  scrvus — the  man  pre 
served  by  his  magnanimous  foe;  and  perpetual  Slavery  was  then 
thought  to  be  a  boon  preferable  to  death.  That  was  the  way  in 
which  Slavery  began.  Has  anybody  found  out  on  the  face  of  the 
earth  a  man  fool  enough  to  give  himself  up  to  another,  and  beg  him 
to  make  him  a  slave?  I  do  not  know  of  one  such  instance  under 
heaven.  Yet  it  may  be  so.  Still,  I  think  that  not  one  man  of  our 
complexion,  of  the  Caucasian  race,  could  be  found  quite  willing 
to  do  that. 

Thus  far  we  have  been  brought  after  having  fought  for  this 
country  and  conquered  it.  The  solemn  appeal  is  made  to  us — 
"Have  we  not  mingled  our  blood  with  yours  in  acquiring  this  coun 
try?"  But  did  we  mingle  our  blood  with  yours  for  the  purpose  of 
wresting  this  country  by  force  from  this  people?  That  is  the  ques 
tion.  You  did  not  say  so  six  months  ago.  You  dare  not  say  so 
now !  You  may  say  that  it  was  purchased,  as  Louisiana  or  as  Florida 
was,  with  the  common  treasure  of  the  country ;  and  then  we  come  to 
the  discussion  of  another  proposition :  What  right  do  you  acquire  to 
establish  Slavery  there  ?  But  I  was  about  to  ask  of  some  gentlemen 
— the  Senator  from  South  Carolina,  for  instance — whose  eye  at  a 
glance  has  comprehended  the  history  of  the  world,  what  he  supposes 
will  be  the  impression  abroad  of  our  Mexican  war,  and  these  our 
Mexican  acquisitions,  if  we  should  give  to  them  the  direction  which 
he  desires?  I  do  not  speak  of  the  propriety  of  slave  labor  being 
carried  anywhere.  I  will  waive  that  question  entirely.  What  is  it 
of  which  the  Senator  from  Vermont  has  told  us  this  morning,  and  of 
which  we  have  heard  so  much  during  the  last  three  weeks?  And 
how  will  our  history  read  by  the  side  of  that?  Eyery  gale  that  floats 
across  the  Atlantic  comes  freighted  with  the  death-groans  of  a  king; 
every  vessel  that  touches  your  shores  bears  with  her  tidings  that  the 


336  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

captives  of  the  Old  World  are  at  last  becoming  free — that  they  are 
seeking,  through  blood  and  slaughter — blindly  and  madly,  it  may  be 
— but  nevertheless  resolutely — deliverance  from  the  fetters  that  have 
held  them  in  bondage.  Who  are  they?  Almost  the  whole  of 
Europe.  And  it  is  only  about  a  year  ago,  I  believe,  that  the  officer 
of  the  Turkish  empire  who  holds  sway  in  Tunis — one  of  the  old 
slave  markets  of  the  world,  whose  prisons  formerly  received  those  of 
our  people  taken  upon  the  high  seas  and  made  slaves  to  their  cap 
tors — announced  to  the  world  that  all  should  there  be  free.  And,  if 
I  am  not  mistaken,  it  will  be  found  that  this  magic  line  which  the 
Senator  from  South  Carolina  believes  has  been  drawn  around  the 
globe  which  we  inhabit,  with  the  view  of  separating  Freedom  and 
Slavery — 36°  30' — brings  this  very  Tunis  into  that  region  in  which 
some  suppose,  by  ordinance  of  nature,  men  are  to  be  held  in 
bondage !  All  over  the  world  the  air  is  vocal  with  the  shouts  of 
men  made  free.  What  does  it  all  mean  ?  It  means  that  they  have 
been  redeemed  from  political  servitude ;  and  in  God's  name  I  ask,  if 
it  be  a  boon  to  mankind  to  be  free  from  political  servitude,  must  it 
not  be  accepted  as  a  matter  of  some  gratulation  that  they  have  been 
relieved  from  personal  servitude — absolute  subjection  to  the  arbitrary 
power  of  others  ?  What  do  we  say  of  them  ?  I  am  not  speaking  of 
the  propriety  of  this  thing;  it  may  be  all  wrong,  and  these  poor 
fellows  in  Paris,  who  have  stout  hands  and  willing  hearts,  anxious  to 
earn  their  bread,  may  be  very  unreasonable  in  fighting  for  it.  It 
may  be  all  wrong  to  cut  off  the  head  of  a  king  or  send  him  across 
the  Channel.  It  may  be  highly  improper  and  foolish  in  Austria  to 
send  away  Metternich,  and  say,  "We  will  look  into  this  business 
ourselves."  According  to  the  doctrine  preached  in  these  halls — 
in  free  America — instead  of  sending  shouts  of  gratulation  across 
the  water  to  these  people,  we  should  send  to  them  groans  and  com 
miseration  for  their  folly,  calling  on  them  to  be  aware  how  they 
take  this  business  into  their  own  hands — informing  them  that  uni 
versal  liberty  is  a  curse ;  that  as  one  man  is  born  with  a  right  to  gov 
ern  an  empire,  he  and  his  posterity  must  continue  to  exercise  that 
power,  because  in  this  case  it  is  not  exactly  partus  sequitur  vcntrem, 
but  partus  sequitur  patrem — that  is  all  the  difference.  The  crown  fol 
lows  the  father !  Under  your  law,  the  chain  follows  the  mother  ! 

Sir,  we  may,  we  ought  to  remember,  that  it  was  law  in  this 
country  in  1776,  that  kings  had  a  right  to  rule  us — did- rule  us. 
George  III.  said  then  "parttis  sequitur  patrem,"  my  son  inherits  my 


ON    THE    CLAYTON    COMPROMISE    BILL.  337 

crown,  "he  follows  the  condition  of  the  father,"  "he  is  born  to  be 
your  ruler;"  your  fathers  said,  this  is  not  true,  this  shall  be  law  no 
longer.  Let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  the  doings  of  that  good  old 
time,  1776.  Then,  sir,  our  fathers,  being  oppressed,  lifted  up  their 
hands  and  appealed  to  the  God  of  justice,  the  common  Father  of  all 
men,  to  deliver  them  and  their  posterity  from  that  law,  which  pro 
claimed  that  "kings  were  born  to  rule."  They  (the  men  of  1776) 
did  not  believe  that  one  man  was  born  "booted  and  spurred"  to  ride 
another.  And  if,  as  they  said,  no  man  was  born  to  rule  another,  did 
it  not  follow,  that  no  man  could  rightfully  be  born  to  serve  another? 
Sir,  in  those  days,  Virginia  and  Virginia's  sons,  Washington  and  Jef 
ferson,  had  as  little  respect  for  that  maxim,  partus  seqnitur  venftem, 
as  for  that  other  cognate  dogma,  "Kings  are  born  to  rule."  I  infer 
from  our  history,  sir,  that  the  men  of  that  day  were  sincere  men, 
earnest,  honest  men,  that  they  meant  what  they  said.  From  their 
declaration,  "#//  men  are  born  equally  free,"  I  infer  that,  in  their 
judgments,  no  man,  by  the  laiv  of  his  nature,  was  born  to  be  a  slave; 
and,  therefore,  he  ought  not  by  any  other  law  to  be  born  a  slave.  I 
think  this  maxim  of  kings  being  born  to  rule,  and  others  being  born 
only  to  serve,  are  both  of  the  same  family,  and  ought  to  have  gone 
down  to  the  same  place  whence  I  imagine  they  came,  long  ago, 
together.  I  do  not  think  that  your  partus  seqnitur  ventrem  had  much 
quarter  shown  it  at  Yorktown  on  a  certain  day  you  may  remember. 
I  think  that  when  the  lion  of  England  crawled  in  the  dust,  beneath 
the  talons  of  your  eagles,  and  Cornwallis  surrendered  to  George 
Washington,  that  maxim,  that  a  man  is  born  to  rule,  went  down,  not 
to  be  seen  among  us  again  forever ;  and  I  think  that  parlus  seqnitur 
ventrem,  in  the  estimation  of  all  sensible  men,  should  have  disap 
peared  along  with  it.  So  the  men  of  that  day  thought.  And  we 
are  thus  brought  to  the  proper  interpretation  of  the  language  of 
those  men  which  has  been  criticised  by  the  Senator  from  South 
Carolina. 

Mr.  President,  it  is  worth  while  to  inquire  what  were  the  pub 
licly  expressed  opinions  of  the  leading  men  and  States,  as  to  the 
policy  of  Negro  Slavery,  from  the  year  1774  up  to  the  year  1787, 
and  from  thence  up  to  the  final  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  in 
1789.  And,  first,  how  was  it  in  the  old  commonwealth,  Virginia? 

"June,  1774 — At  a  general  meeting  of  the  freeholders  and  inhabitants  of  Prince 
George's  county,  Virginia,  the  following  resolves  were  unanimously  agreed  to  (among 
others) : 

23 


338  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

"  RESOLVED,  That  the  African  trade  is  injurious  to  this  Colony;  obstructs  the  pop 
ulation  of  it  by  freemen,  prevents  manufacturers  and  other  useful  emigrants  from 
Europe  from  settling  among  us,  and  occasions  an  annual  increase  of  the  balance  of  trade 
against  this  Colony." — (See  American  Archives,  4th  series,  vol.  I,  p.  493). 

"  At  a  meeting  of  the  freeholders  and  other  inhabitants  of  the  county  of  Culpeper, 
in  Virginia,  assembled  on  due  notice,  at  the  Court-House  of  the  said  county,  on  Thurs 
day,  the  7th  of  July,  1774,  to  consider  of  the  most  effectual  method  to  preserve  the 
rights  and  liberties  of  America : 

"RESOLVED,  That  the  importing  of  slaves  and  convict  servants  is  injurious  to  this 
Colony,  as  it  obstructs  the  population  of  it  with  freemen  and  useful  manufacturers; 
and  that  we  will  not  buy  any  such  slave  or  convict  servant  hereafter  to  be  imported." 
— (American  Archives,  4th  series,  vol.  I,  p.  523.) 

"At  a  general  meeting  of  the  freeholders  and  inhabitants  of  the  county  of  Nanse- 
mond,  Virginia,  on  the  nth  day  of  July,  1774,  the  following  resolutions  were  unani 
mously  agreed  to: 

"RESOLVED,  That  the  African  trade  is  injurious,"  etc.,  [same  as  the  resolution  of 
Prince  George's  county.] — (American  Archives,  vol.  I,  p.  530.) 

"July  14,  1774,  at  a  similar  meeting  in  Caroline  county,  Virginia: 

"RESOLVED,  (That  the  African  trade  is  injurious  to  this  Colony,  etc.;  and,  there 
fore,  that  the  purchase  of  all  imported  slaves  ought  to  be  associated  against."-(Ib,  p.  541.) 

"July  16,  1774,  at  a  meeting  of  Surrey  county,  Virginia: 

"5th,  RESOLVED,  That,  as  the  population  of  this  Colony  with  freemen  and  useful 
manufacturers  is  greatly  obstructed  by  the  importations  of  slaves  and  convict  servants, 
we  will  not  purchase  any  such  slaves  or  servants  hereafter  to  be  imported." — (American 
Archives,  4th  series,  vol.  I,  p.  593. 

"At  a  general  meeting  of  the  freeholders  and  other  inhabitants  of  the  county  of 
Fairfax,  Virginia,  at  the  Court-House  in  the  town  of  Alexandria,  on  Monday,  the  i8th 
of  July,  1774,  George  Washington,  Esq.,  in  the  chair: 

"RESOLVED,  That  it  is  the  opinion  of  this  meeting,  that,  during  our  present  diffi 
culties  and  distress,  no  slaves  ought  to  be  imported  into  any  of  the  British  Colonies  on 
this  continent ;  and  we  take  this  opportunity  of  declaring  our  most  earnest  wishes  to 
see  an  entire  stop  forever  put  to  such  a  wicked,  cruel  and  unnatural  trade. 

"RESOLVED,  That  it  is  the  opinion  of  this  meeting  that  a  solemn  covenant  and 
association  should  be  entered  into  by  all  the  Colonies,"  etc.,  etc. — American  Archives, 
vol.  i,  p.  600. 

George  Washington,  Mr.  President,  was  the  presiding  officer  at 
one  of  these  meetings.  Certain  young  men  here  may  have  Juard 
something  of  this  George  Washington !  He  was  then  a  farmer  of 
Fairfax.  What  he  did  after  that  meeting,  shall  be  known,  remem 
bered  and  revered  by  a  world  thousands  of  years  to  come,  long  after 
you  and  I,  and  all  of  us,  have  been  food  for  worms. 

Similar  meetings  were  held,  and  similar  resolutions  passed,  in 
the  following  counties  in  Virginia:  In  Hanover,  on  the  20th  July, 
1774;  in  Princess  Ann,  in  July  of  the  same  year.  I  extract  from 
the  same  volume  of  American  Archives  the  following,  which,  from 
Mr.  Jefferson's  connection  with  it,  becomes  important. 

At  a  very  full  meeting  of  delegates  from  the  different  counties 


ON    THE    CLAYTON    COMPROMISE    BILL.  339 

in  the  Colony  and  Dominion  of  Virginia,  begun  "in  Williamsburg, 
the  1st  day  of  August,  1774,  the  following  association  was  unani 
mously  agreed  to;"  I  omit,  Mr.  President,  all  not  bearing  upon  the 
subject  of  Slavery,  and  quote  only  the  following: 

"We  will  not  ourselves  import,  nor  pure/tape  any  slave  or  slaves 
imported  by  any  other  person,  after  the  first  day  of  November  next, 
either  from  Africa,  the  West  Indies,  or  any  other  place."  It  seems 
Mr.  Jefferson  was  a  delegate  to  this  Convention,  but  was  prevented 
by  sickness  from  attending.  He,  however,  addressed  a  letter  to  the 
Convention,  which  I  commend  to  the  especial  attention  of  gentlemen 
from  the  South,  who  object  so  strongly  to  the  expression  of  opinions 
as  to  Slavery  here.  Mr.  Jefferson,  in  one  paragraph  in  his  letter  to 
the  Convention,  writes  thus,  on  the  subject  of  Negro  Slavery:  "The" 
abolition  of  Slavery  is  tJie  present  object  of  desire  in  these  Colonies, 
where  it  was  unhappily  introduced  in  their  infant  state."  Mark 
these  words,  Mr.  President.  He  complains  that  Slavery  was  intro 
duced  into  our  American  Colonies  in  their  "infant  state."  Would 
Mr.  Jefferson,  were  he  here  to-day,  send  Slavery  to  the  infant  colo 
nies  of  Oregon,  New  Mexico  and  California?  But  Mr.  Jefferson 
goes  on  to  say:  "But  previous  to  the  enfranchisement  of  the  slaves 
we  have,  it  is  necessary  to  exclude  all  further  importations  from 
Africa ;  but  our  repeated  attempts  to  effect  this  by  prohibitions,  and 
by  imposing  duties  which  might  amount  to  prohibition,  have  hith 
erto  been  defeated  by  His  Majesty's  negative,  thus  preferring  the 
immediate  advantage  of  a  few  African  corsairs  to  the  lasting  interest 
of  the  American  States,  and  to  the  rights  of  human  nature,  deeply 
wounded  by  this  infamous  practice." 

Here  we  see  proofs  undeniable  that  Mr.  Jefferson,  the  leading 
spirit  then,  confidently  anticipated,  not  the  continuance  and  further 
extension  ot  Slavery,  but  its  abolition ;  and  in  order  to  the  speedy 
"enfranchisement"  of  the  slaves  then  in  Virginia,  he  desires  to  pre 
vent  their  augmentation,  by  prohibiting  their  importation.  He  com 
plains  that  Slavery  was  prejudicial  to  the  "infant"  Colony  of  Vir 
ginia.  Were  he  here,  would  he  not  vote  to  exclude  Slavery  from 
the  "infant"  Colonies  of  Oregon,  New  Mexico  and  California?  We 
have  seen  that  he  drafted  the  clause  against  Slavery  in  the  Ordinance 
of  1787.  We  know  he  remained  unchanged  till  his  death. 

How  stood  public  opinion,  Mr.  President,  in  the  year  1775,  in 
the  State  of  Georgia  ?  From  the  proceedings  of  a  patriotic  associa- 


340  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

tion  in  Georgia  at  that  time,  called  the  "Darien  Committee,"  I  take 
the  following: 

"  We,  therefore,  the  Representatives  of  the  extensive  district  of  Darien,  in  the 
Colony  of  Georgia,  having  now  assembled  in  Congress,  by  authority  and  free  choice  of 
the  inhabitants  of  the  said  district,  now  freed  from  their  fetters,  do  resolve : 

"  5.  To  show  the  world  that  we  are  not  influenced  by  any  contracted  or  interested 
motives,  but  a  general  philanthrophy  for  all  mankind,  of  whatever  climate,  language 
or  complexion,  we  hereby  declare  our  disapprobation  and  abhorrence  of  the  unnatural 
practice  of  Slavery  in  America  (however  the  uncultivated  state  of  our  country,  or  other 
specious  arguments  may  plead  for),  a  practice  founded  in  injustice  and  cruelty,  and 
highly  dangerous  to  our  liberties  (as  well  as  lives),  debasing  part  of  our  fellow-crea 
tures  below  men,  and  corrupting  the  virtue  and  morals  of  the  rest;  and  as  laying  the 
basis  of  that  liberty  we  contend  for  (and  which  we  pray  the  Almighty  to  continue  to 
the  latest  posterity)  upon  a  very  wrong  foundation.  We,  therefore,  resolve  at  all  times 
to  use  our  utmost  endeavors  for  the  manumission  of  our  slaves  in  this  Colony,  upon  the 
most  safe  and  equitable  footing  for  the  masters  and  themselves." — American  Archives, 
vol.  i,  p.  1136. 

From  these  papers,  as  well  as  the  general  history  of  the  times, 
we  can  see  what  the  fathers  thought  on  this  subject.  May  I  not, 
with  profound  respect,  suggest  that  these  papers,  dated  in  1774  and 
1775,  explain  to  us  the  meaning  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence,  adopted  in  1776.  Surely  the  men  who  voted  the  foregoing 
resolutions  in  1775  might,  very  consistently,  in  1776,  declare  as  they 
did — "We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident,  that  all  men  were 
created  equal ;  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain 
inalienable  rights ;  that  among  these  are  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit 
of  happiness."  Well  might  these  men,  with  their  hearts  purified 
from  selfishness  by  the  dreadful  conflict  which  then  was  seen  to  be 
inevitable,  feel  that  all  men  were  equal  before  God,  in  whom  alone 
they  could  trust  for  aid  in  that  dark  hour,  and  that  therefore  all  men 
were  or  ought  to  be  masters  of  themselves,  and  answerable  only  to 
the  Creator  for  the  use  they  should  make  of  that  liberty — well  might 
those  brave,  good  old  men,  after  such  a  declaration,  look  up  calmly 
and  hopefully  to  the  heavens  and  declare:  "And  for  the  support  of 
this  declaration,  with  a  firm  reliance  on  the  protection  of  Divine  Ptovi- 
dence,  we  mutually  pledge  to  each  other  our  lives,  our  fortunes  and 
our  sacred  honor." 

Mr.  President,  these  men,  when  they  spoke  of  Slavery  and  its 
extension,  did  not  get  up  some  hybrid  sort  of  "compromise,"  and 
consult  some  supreme  court.  They  declared  Slavery  an  evil,  a 
wrong,  a  prejudice  to  free  colonies,  a  social  mischief  and  a  political 
evil;  and  if  these  were  denied,  they  replied,  "These  truths  are  self- 
evident."  And  for  the  judgment  of  men  they  appealed  to  no 


ON    THE    CLAYTON    COMPROMISE    BILL.  341 

earthly  court;  they  took  an  appeal  "to  the  Supreme  Judge  of  the 
world."  When  lam  asked  to  extend  to  this  new  Empire  of  ours, 
now  in  its  infancy,  an  institution  which  they  pronounced  an  evil  to 
all  communities ;  when  I  refuse  to  agree  with  some  here  whose  judg 
ments  I  revere,  and  whose  motives  I  know  to  be  pure,  I  can  only 
say,  I  stand  where  our  fathers  stood  of  old,  I  am  sustained  in  my 
position  by  the  men  who  founded  the  first  system  of  rational  liberty 
on  the  earth.  With  them  by  my  side,  I  can  afford  to  differ  with 
those  here  whom  I  respect.  With  such  authority  for  my  conduct,  I 
can  cheerfully  encounter  the  frowns  of  some,  the  scorn  of  all ;  I  can 
turn  to  the  fathers  of  such  and  be  comforted.  They  knew  what  was 
best  for  an  infant  people  just  struggling  into  existence.  If  their 
opinions  are  worth  anything — if  the  opinions  of  the  venerated  men 
are  to  be  considered  as  authority — I  ask  Southern  gentlemen  what 
they  mean  when  they  ask  me  to  extend  Slavery  to  the  distant  shores 
of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and  the  slave  trade  between  Maryland  and  Vir 
ginia  and  that  almost  unknown  country? 

I  am  considering  the  propriety  of  doing  this  thing  as  if  the 
question  were  now  for  the  first  time  presented  to  us.  I  ask  any 
Southern  man,  if  there  were  not  a  slave  on  this  continent,  would  you 
send  your  ships  to  Africa  and  bring  them  here  ?  Suppose  this  Con 
federation  of  ours  had  been  formed  before  a  slave  existed  in  it,  and 
suppose  here,  in  the  year  of  grace  1848,  you  had  acquired  California 
and  New  Mexico,  and  you  were  told  that  there  existed  a  modified 
system  of  Slavery  there,  and  that  they  wanted  laborers  there,  would 
a  Senator  rise  in  his  place  and  say,  we  will  authorize  the  African  slave 
trade,  in  order  to  introduce  laborers  into  our  infant  colonies  ?  If  you 
would  not  bring  them  from  the  shores  of  Africa — buying  them  with 
some  imagined  "pattns  scquitur  venttem"  branded  on  them  some 
where,  how  can  you  prove  to  me  that  it  would  be  right  to  transfer 
them  from  Maryland  or  Virginia,  three  thousand  miles,  to  the  shores 
of  the  Pacific?  If  Slavery  were  a  curse  to  you  in  the  beginning, 
but  struck  its  roots  so  deep  into  your  social  and  municipal  system, 
as  was  then  said,  that  it  could  not  be  eradicated  entirely,  how  is  it 
that  you  call  upon  me,  as  a  matter  of  conscience  and  duty,  to  trans 
fer  this  curse  to  an  area  of  square  miles  greatly  exceeding  that  of 
the  thirteen  States,  when  the  Confederation  was  formed?  If  it  is  so 
that  it  is  an  evil — and  so  all  you  statesmen  have  pronounced  it,  and 
so  all  your  eminent  men,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  in  modern 
times,  have  regarded  it — how  is  it  that  you  call  upon  me  to  extend 


342  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

it  to  those  vast  dominions  which  you  have  recently  acquired?  Is  it 
true  that  I  am  obliged  to  receive  into  my  family  a  man  with  the 
small-pox  or  the  leprosy,  that  they  may  be  infected?  I  know  you 
do  not  consider  it  in  that  light  now.  But  the  gentleman  from  Virginia 
has  said  that  it  must  be  done.  Why?  Because  it  is  compassion  to 
the  slave.  He  cannot  be  nurtured  in  Virginia;  your  lands  are  worn 
out.  Sir,  that  statement  sounded  ominous  in  my  ears.  It  gave  rise 
to  jjpme  reflection.  Why  are  your  lands  worn  out  ?  Are  the  lands 
of  Pennsylvania  worn  out?  Are  those  of  Connecticut  worn  out? 
Is  not  Massachusetts  more  productive  to-day  than  when  the  foot  of 
the  white  man  was  first  impressed  upon  her  soil?  Your  lands  are 
worn  out,  because  the  slave  has  turned  pale  thejand  wherever  he 
has  set  down  his  black  foot !  It  is  slave-labor  that  has  done  all  this. 
And  must  we  then  extend  to  these  territories  that  which  produces 
sterility  wherever  it  is  found,  till  barren  desolation  shall  cover  the 
whole  land?  If  you  can  call  upon  me,  as  a  matter  of  compassion, 
to  send  the  slave  to  California  or  Oregon,  you  can  call  upon  me  by 
the  same  sacred  obligation  to  receive  him  into  Ohio  as  a  slave ;  and  I 
would  be  just  as  much  bound,  as  a  citizen  of  Ohio,  to  say  that  the 
Constitution  should  be  so  construed  as  to  admit  slaves  there,  because 
they  have  made  the  land  in  Virginia  barren,  and  they  and  their  mas 
ters  were  perishing,  till  Ohio  had  also  become  a  wilderness.  That 
reason  will  not  do.  Sensitive  as  Ohio  may  appear  to  the  morbid 
benevolence  spoken  of — with  which  I  have  no  sympathy  at  all — we 
can  see  through  that — the  citizens  of  Ohio  cannot  accept  these  men 
upon  such  terms. 

What  is  there  in  the  way,  then,  of  my  giving  an  intelligent  vote 
on  this  subject?  Nothing  at  all.  I  would  take  this  bill  in  a  mo 
ment,  if  I  had  faith  in  the  processes  through  which  that  law  is  to 
pass  until  it  becomes  a  law  in  the  Chamber  below.  But  I  have  not 
that  faith,  and  I  will  tell  the  gentlemen  why.  It  is  a  sad  commen 
tary  upon  the  perfection  of  human  reason,  that  with  but  a  very  few 
exceptions,  gentlemen  coming  from  a  slave  State — and  I  think  I  have 
one  behind  me  who  ought  always  to  be  before  me — [MR.  BADGER^ 
with  a  very  few  exceptions,  all  eminent  lawyers  on  this  floor  from 
that  section  of  the  country,  have  argued  that  you  have  no  right  to 
prohibit  the  introduction  of  Slavery  into  Oregon,  California  and  New 
Mexico;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  not  a  man,  with  few 
exceptions  (and  some  highly  respectable),  in  the  free  States,  learned 
or  unlearned,  clerical  or  lay,  who  has  any  pretentions  to  legal  knowl- 


ON    THE   CLAYTON    COMPROMISE    BILL.  343 

edge,  but  believes  in  his  conscience  that  you  have  a  right  to  pro 
hibit  Slavery.  Is  not  that  a  curious  commentary  upon  that  wonder 
ful  thing  called  human  reason  ? 

Mr.  UNDERWOOD. — It  is  regulated  by  a  line. 

Yes,  by  36°  30',  and  what  is  black  on  one  side  of  the  line  is 
white  on  the  other,  turning  to  jet  black  again  when  restored  to  its 
original  locality.  How  is  that?  Can  I  have  confidence  in  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  when  my  confidence  fails  in 
Senators  around  me  here?  Do  I. expect  that  the  members  of  that 
body  will  be  more  careful  than  the  Senators  from  Georgia  and  South 
Carolina  to  form  their  opinions  without  any  regard  to  selfish  consid 
erations  ?  Can  I  suppose  that  either  of  these  gentlemen,  or  the  gen 
tleman  from  Georgia  on  the  other  side  of  the  Chamber  [MR.  JOHN 
SON],  or  the  learned  Senator  from  Mississippi  [MR.  DAVIS],  who 
thought  it  exceedingly  wrong  that  we  should  attempt  to  restrain  the 
Almighty  in  the  execution  of  his  purposes,  as  revealed  to  us  by 
Noah — can  I  suppose  that  these  Senators,  with  all  the  terrible 
responsibilities  which  press  upon  us  when  engaged  in  legislating  for 
a  whole  empire,  came  to  their  conclusions  without  the  most  anxious 
deliberation?  And  yet  on  one  side  of  the  line,  in  the  slave  States, 
the  Constitution  reads  Yea,  while  on  the  other,  after  the  exercise  of 
an  equal  degree  of  intelligence,  calmness  and  deliberation,  in  the  free 
States  the  Constitution  is  made  to  read  Nay. 

I  admire  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  as  a  tribunal. 
I  admire  the  wisdom  which  contrived  it.  I  rejoice  in  the  good  con 
sequences  to  this  Republic  from  the  exercise  of  its  functions.  I  also 
revere  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  Here  is  the  most  august 
body  in  the  world,  they  say,  composed  of  men  who  have  wasted  the 
midnight  oil  from  year  to  year — men  who  in  cloisters,  in  courts,  in 
legislative  halls,  have  been  reaping  the  fruits  of  ripe  experience,  and 
suddenly  their  mighty  intellects,  able  to  scan  everything,  however 
minute,  and  comprehend  everything,  however  grand,  utterly  fail 
them,  and  they  kneel  down  in  dumb  insignificance,  and  implore  the 
Supreme  Court  to  read  the  Constitution  for  them.  I  think  the  Sen 
ator  from  South  Carolina  must  have  had  some  new  light  upon  the 
subject  within  the  last  few  years,  and  that  several  of  my  Democratic 
friends  on  all  sides  of  the  Chamber  must  have  been  smitten  with  new 
love  for  the  power  and  wisdom  of  the  Supreme  Court.  Do  you 
remember  the  case  adverted  to  by  the  Senator  from  New  Jersey 


344  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

to-day?  I  recollect  very  well  when  we  did  not  stop  to  inquire  how 
the  Supreme  Court  had  decided  or  ordained.  It  had  decided,  with 
John  Marshall  at  its  head — a  man  whose  lightest  conjectures  upon 
the  subject  of  constitutional  law  have  always  had  with  me  as  much 
weight  as  the  well-considered  opinion  of  almost  any  other  man — 
that  Congress  had  power  to  establish  just  such  a  bank  as  you  had; 
but  with  what  definite  scorn  did  Democratic  gentlemen — Jackson 
Democrats,  as  they  chose  to  be  called — curl  their  lips  when  referred 
to  that  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court.  Then  the  cry  was,  "We 
are  judges  for  ourselves ;  we  make  no  law  unless  we  have  the  power 
to  enact  it."  Now,  however,  the  doctrine  is,  that  here  is  one  only 
tribunal  competent  to  put  the  matter  at  rest  forever.  We  are  to 
thank  God,  that  though  all  should  fail,  there  is  an  infallible  deposi 
tory  of  truth,  and  it  lives  once  a  year  for  three  months,  in  a  little 
chamber  below  us !  We  can  go  there.  Now,  I  understand  my  duty 
here  to  be  to  ascertain  what  constitutional  power  we  have ;  and  when 
I  have  ascertained  that  I  act  without  reference  to  what  the  Supreme 
Court  may  do — for  they  have  yet  furnished  no  guide  on  the  subject 
— we  are  to  take  it  for  granted  that  they  will  concur  with  us.  I 
agree  with  gentlemen  who  have  been  so  lofty  in  their  encomiums 
upon  that  Court,  that  their  decision,  whether  right  or  wrong,  con 
trols  our  action.  But  we  have  not  hitherto  endeavored  to  ascertain 
what  the  Supreme  Court  would  do.  I  wish  next  to  ascertain  in 
what  mode  this  wonderful  response  is  to  be  obtained — not  from  the 
Delphic  Oracle,  but  from  that  infallible  divinity,  the  Supreme  Court. 
How  is  it  to  be  done?  A  gentleman  starts  from  Baltimore,  in 
Maryland,  with  a  dozen  black  men,  who  have  been  slaves ;  he  takes 
them  to  California,  three  thousand  miles  off  Now,  I  don't  know 
how  it  may  be  in  other  parts  of  the  world,  but  I  know  that  in  the 
State  of  Ohio  we  do  not  travel  three  thousand  miles  to  get  justice. 
What,  then,  is  the  admirable  contrivance  in  this  bill  by  which  we  can 
get  at  the  meaning  of  the  Constitution  ?  It  seems  the  meaning  of 
the  Constitution  is  to  be  forever  hidden  from  us  until  light  shall  be 
given  by  the  Supreme  Court.  Sir,  this  bill  seems  to  me  a  rich  and 
rare  legislative  curiosity.  It  idoes  not  enact  "a  law,"  which  I  had 
supposed  the  usual  function  of  legislation.  No,  sir ;  it  only  enacts 
"a  law-suit."  So  we  virtually  enact  that,  when  the  Supreme  Court 
say.,  we  can  make  law,  iJien  we  have  made  it ! 

But,   sir,   to  have  a  fair  trial  of  this  question,    so  as  to  make  it 
effectual  to  keep  slaves  out  of  our  Territory,  all  must  admit  this  trial 


ON    THE    CLAYTON    COMPROMISE    BILL.  345 

should  be  had  before  slaves  have  become  numerous  there.  If  Slav 
ery  goes  there  and  remains  there  for  one  year,  according  to  all 
experience,  it  is  eternal.  Let  it  but  plant  its  roots  there,  and  the 
next  thing  you  will  hear  will  be  earnest  appeals  about  the  rights  of 
property.  It  will  be  said :  ' '  The  Senate  did  not  say  we  had  no 
light  to  come  here.  The  House  of  Representatives,  a  body  of  gentle 
men  elected  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  on  account  of  their  sagac 
ity  and  legal  attainments,  did  not  prohibit  us  from  coming  here.  I 
thought  I  had  a  right  to  come  here ;  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina 
said  I  had  a  right  to  come ;  the  honorable  Senator  from  Georgia  said 
I  had  a  right  to  come  here ;  his  colleague  said  it  was  a  right  secured 
to  me  somewhere  high  up  in  the  clouds,  and  not  belonging  to  the 
world ;  the  Senator  from  Mississippi  said  it  was  the  ordinance  from 
Heaven,  sanctified  by  decrees  and  revealed  through  prophecy — am  I 
not,  then,  to  enjoy  the  privileges  thus  so  fully  secured  to  me?  I 
have  property  here ;  several  of  my  women  have  borne  children,  who 
have  pattus  sequitut  ventoem  born  with  them — they  are  my  property." 
Thus  the  appeal  will  be  made  to  their  fellow-citizens  around  them ; 
and  it  will  be  asked  whether  you  are  prepared  to  strike  down  the 
property  which  the  settler  in  those  Territories  has  thus  acquired? 
That  will  be  the  case,  unless  the  negro  from  Baltimore,  when  he  gets 
there  and  sees  Peons  there — slaves  not  by  hereditary  taint,  but  by  a 
much  better  title,  a  verdict  before  a  justice  of  the  peace — should  deter 
mine  to  avail  himself  of  the  admirable  facilities  afforded  him  by  this 
bill  for  gaining  his  freedom.  Suppose  my  friend  from  New  Hamp 
shire,  when  he  goes  home,  gets  up  a  meeting  and  collects  a  fund  for 
the  purpose  of  sending  a  missionary  after  these  men ;  and  when 
the  missionary  arrives  there,  he  proposes  to  hold  a  prayer-meeting ; 
he  gets  up  a  meeting,  as  they  used  to  do  in  Yankee  times,  "for  the 
improvement  of  gifts."  He  goes  to  the  negro  quarter  of  this  gen 
tleman  from  Baltimore,  and  says:  "Come,  I  want  this  brother;  it  is 
true  he  is  a  son  of  Ham,  but  I  want  to  instruct  him  that  he  is  free." 
I  am  very  much  inclined  to  think  that  the  missionary  would  fare  very 
much  as  one  did  in  South  Carolina,  at  the  hands  of  him  from  Balti 
more.  This  bill  supposes  the  negro  is  to  start  all  at  once  into  a  free 
Anglo-Saxon  in  California — the  blood  of  Liberty  flowing  in  every 
vein,  and  its  divine  impulses  throbbing  in  his  heart.  He  is  to  say: 
"I  am  free;  I  am  a  Californian;  I  bring  the  right  of  habeas  corpus 
with  me."  At  last  he  is  brought  up  on  a  writ  of  habeas  cot  pus — 
before  whom  ?  Very  likely  one  of  those  gentlemen  who  have  been 


346  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN . 

proclaiming  that  Slavery  has  a  right  to  go  there ;  for  such  are  the 
men  that  Mr.  Polk  is  likely  to  appoint.  He  has  prejudged  the  case. 
On  the  faith  of  his  opinion  the  slave  has  been  brought  there — what 
can  he  do?  There  is  his  recorded  judgment  printed  in  your  Con 
gressional  Report — what  will  he  say?  "You  are  a  slave.  Mr.  Cal- 
houn  was  right.  Judge  Berrien,  of  Georgia,  a  profound  lawyer, 
whom  I  knew  well,  was  right.  I  know  these  gentlemen  well ;  their 
opinion  is  entitled  to  the  highest  authority ;  and  in  the  face  of  it,  it 
does  not  become  me  to  say  that  you  are  free — so,  boy,  go  to  your 
master ;  you  belong  to  the  class  partus  sequitur  ventrem ;  you  are  not 
quite  enough  of  a  Saxon!"  What,  then,  is  to  be  done  by  this  bill? 
Oh !  a  writ  of  error  or  appeal  can  come  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States.  How?  The  negro,  if  he  is  to  be  treated  like  a  white 
man,  taking  out  an  appeal,  must  give  bonds  in  double  the  value  of 
the  subject  matter  in  dispute.  And  what  is  that?  If  you  consider 
it  the  mercantile  value  of  the  negro,  it  may  be  perhaps  $1,000  or 
$2,000.  But  he  cannot  have  the  appeal  according  to  this  bill,  unless 
the  value  of  the  thing  in  controversy  amounts  to  the  value  of 
$2,000.  But,  then,  there  comes  in  this  ideality  of  personal  lib 
erty.  What  is  it  worth?  Nothing  at  all — says  the  Senator  from 
South  Carolina — to  this  fellow,  who  is  better  without  it.  And  under 
this  complexity  of  legal  quibbling  and  litigation,  it  is  expected  that 
the  negro  will  stand  there  and  contend  with  his  master,  and  coming 
on  to  Washington,  will  prosecute  his  appeal  two  years  before  the 
Supreme  Court,  enjoying  the  opportunity  of  visiting  his  old  friends 
about  Baltimore ! 

And  now,  Mr.  President,  if  we  have  found  upon  the  opinions  of 
wise  ones  of  old,  upon  the  observations  of  past  and  present  time, 
that  involuntary  Slavery  is  not  useful,  profitable,  or  beneficial  to 
either  master  or  slave,  that  such  institutions  only  become  tolerable, 
because,  when  long  established,  the  evil  is  less  than  those  conse 
quences  which  would  follow  their  sudden  change,  I  think  it  will  be 
admitted  that  we  should  prohibit  involuntary  servitude  in  the  terri 
tories  over  which  we  have  control. 

Here,  then,  the  question  arises,  have  we  this  prohibitory  power? 
I  have  already  said,  that  where  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  has  solemnly  adjudged  any  power  to  belong  to  any  branch  of 
this  Government,  such  adjudication  should,  until  overruled,  have 
great,  if  not  controlling,  weight  with  Congress.  What,  then,  are 
the  adjudications  of  that  court  upon  this  point?  I  quote  from  the 


* 


ON    THE    CLAYTON    COMPROMISE    BILL.  347 

case  so  often  referred  to,  American  Insurance  Company  vs.  Carter 
(1st  Peters'  Reports,  page  511).  On  page  542  of  that  case,  the 
court  says:  "The  Constitution  confers  absolutely  on  the  Govern 
ment  of  the  Union  the  powers  of  making  war,  and  of  making  treaties. 
Consequently,  that  Government  possesses  the  power  of  acquiring 
territory,  either  by  conquest  or  treaty."  Again,  on  the  same  page, 
the  right  to  make  law  for  a  territory  is  thus  spoken  of:  "Perhaps 
the  power  of  governing  a  territory  of  the  United  States,  which  has 
not,  by  becoming  a  State,  acquired  the  means  of  self-government, 
may  result  necessarily  from  the  fact  that  it  is  not  within  the  jurisdic 
tion  of  any  particular  State,  and  is  within  the  power  and  jurisdic 
tion  of  the  United  States.  The  right  to  govern  may  be  the  inevita 
ble  consequence  of  the  right  to  acquire  territory ;  but  which  ever  may 
be  the  source  whence  the  power  is  derived,  tlie  possession  of  it  is 
unquestioned." 

Nothing  can  be  clearer  or  more  satisfactory  on  this  point. 
While  this  doctrine  conforms  to  the  plain  dictates  of  reason,  it  is  sat 
isfactory  to  know  that  the  principle  has  been  strengthened  by  the 
uniform  practice  under  the  Constitution.  The  latter  class  of  cases  is 
too  numerous  to  permit  even  a  reference  to  them  all.  They  have 
been  frequently  adverted  to  in  this  debate,  and  therefore  I  need  not 
again  bring  them  to  the  attention  of  the  Senate.  I  therefore  find  the 
power  of  Congress  to  make  law  for  a  territory  absolute  and  unlim 
ited.  I  have  only  to  consider  whether  a  law  prohibiting  Slavery,  in 
a  territory  where  Slavery  does  not  already  exist,  is  sound  policy  for 
such  territory. 

Now,  if  we  can  make  any  law  whatever,  not  contrary  to  the 
express  prohibitions  of  the  Constitution,  we  can  enact  that  a  man 
with  $60,000  worth  of  bank-notes  of  Maryland  shall  forfeit  the  whole 
amount  if  he  attempts  to  pass  one  of  them  in  the  Territory  of  Cali 
fornia.  We  may  say  if  a  man  carry  a  menagerie  of  wild  beasts 
there  worth  $500,000,  and  undertakes  to  exhibit  them  there,  he  shall 
forfeit  them.  The  man  comes  back  with  his  menagerie,  and  says 
that  the  law  forbade  him  to  exhibit  his  animals  there ;  it  was  thought 
that,  as  an  economical  arrangement,  such  things  should  not  be  toler 
ated  there.  That  you  may  do :  he  of  the  lions  and  tigers  goes  back, 
having  lost  his  whole  concern.  But  now  you  take  a  slave  to  Cali 
fornia,  and  instantly  your  power  fails;  all  the  power  of  the  sover 
eignty  of  this  country  is  impotent  to  stop  him.  That  is  a  strange 
sort  of  argument  to  me.  It  has  always  been  considered  that  when  a 


348  SPEECHES   OF   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

State  forms  its  constitution  it  can  exclude  Slavery.  Why  so? 
Because  it  chances  to  consider  it  an  evil.  If  it  be  a  proper  subject 
of  legislation  in  a  State,  and  we  have  absolute  legislative  power 
transferred  to  us  by  virtue  of  this  bloody  power  of  conquest,  as 
some  say,  or  by  purchase  as  others  maintain,  I  ask — why  may  we 
not  act  ?  Again ;  considering  this  as  an  abstract  question,  are  there 
not  duties  devolving  upon  us,  for  the  performance  of  which  we  may 
not  be  responsible  to  any  earthly  tribunal,  but  for  which  God  who 
has  created  us  all  will  hold  us  accountable?  What  is  your  duty, 
above  all  others,  to  a  conquered  people?  You  say  it  is  your  duty 
to  give  them  a  Government — may  you  not,  then,  do  everything  for 
them  which  you  are  not  forbidden  to  do  by  some  fundamental  axio 
matic  truth  at  the  foundation  of  your  constitution?  Show  me,  then, 
how  your  action  is  precluded,  and  I  submit.  Though  I  believe  it 
ought  to  be  otherwise,  yet,  if  the  Constitution  of  my  country  for 
bids  me,  I  yield.  The  constitutions  of  many  States  declare  Slavery 
to  be  an  evil.  Southern  gentlemen  have  said  that  they  would  have 
done  away  with  it  if  possible,  and  they  have  apologized  to  the  world 
and  to  themselves  for  the  existence  of  it  in  their  States.  These  hon 
est  old  men  of  another  day  never  could  have  failed  to  strike  off 
the  chains  from  every  negro  in  the  Colonies,  if  it  had  been  possible 
for  them  to  do  so  without  upturning  the  foundations  of  society. 

I  do  not  revive  these  things  to  wound  the  feelings  of  gentlemen. 
I  know  some  of  them  consider  this  institution  as  valuable ;  but  many 
of  them,  I  also  know,  regard  it  as  an  evil.  But  Slavery  is  not  in 
Oregon,  it  is  not  in  California ;  and  when  I  find  that  you  have  tram 
pled  down  the  people  in  order  to  extend  your  dominion  over  them,  1 
feel  it  to  be  my  duty,  when  you  appeal  to  me  to  make  laws  for  them 
and  the  Supreme  Court  has  said  that  I  have  the  power  to  do  so,  to 
avert  from  them  this  evil  of  Slavery,  and  establish  free  institutions, 
under  which  no  man  can  say  that  another  is  his  property.  I  do  not 
doubt  this  power.  I  know  that  it  has  been  considered  of  old,  from 
1787  till  the  present  hour,  to  be  vested  in  Congress.  The  judicial 
tribunals  in  the  West  have  considered  it  so,  and  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States  have  said  in  that  decision,  so  often  referred  to, 
that  it  was  so.  Have  they  found  any  restrictions  upon  us?  No. 
And  what  would  you  do  if  you  were  in  Oregon  to-day,  and  it  were  a 
State?  What  would  you  do,  and  you,  and  you?  Would  any  man 
here,  if  he  were  acting  in  a  legislative  capacity,  say,  "I  feel  myself 
bound  to  admit  this  evil  into  this  country,  for  the  benefit  of  some  of 


ON  THE  CLAYTON  COMPROMISE  BILL.  349 

the  States  who  are  overburdened  with  slaves."  If  this  were  true,  it 
would  be  the  duty  of  the  free  States,  in  that  fraternal  spirit  which 
ought  to  prevail  between  the  various  States  of  the  Union,  to  admit 
slaves  whenever  the  slave  States  became  overburdened  with  them. 
Do  we  so  act  in  legislating  for  our  States?  No;  we  say,  "enjoy 
your  slaves,  or  free  them,  as  you  will,  but  it  is  our  wish  that  there 
shall  be  no  Slavery  here."  You  may  implore  a  State,  if  you  will, 
to  take  slaves  into  its  bosom  for  your  convenience,  but  they  do  not 
feel  themselves  bound  by  any  Government  obligation  to  do  it.  Am 
I  not,  then,  bound  to  lay  the  foundations  of  that  State  for  whose 
future  progress  I  am  to  be  responsible,  in  the  way  which  I  think  the 
most  likely  to  produce  beneficial  results  to  the  people  there?  And 
when  I  find  myself  possessed  of  this  power,  and  clothed  with  com 
mensurate  responsibility,  no  threats  of  dissolution  of  the  Union,  no 
heartburnings  here  or  there,  and,  least  of  all — that  which  we  have 
heard  much  of  out  of  doors — the  coming  Presidential  election,  shall 
deter  me  from  pursuing  this  course.  I  am  for  making  a  law,  in  the 
language  of  the  Ordinance  of  1787;  I  would  have  it  enacted  that 
Slavery  shall  never  exist  in  that  country.  Then,  when  my  black 
man  comes  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  as  provided 
in  this  bill,  he  comes  with  a  positive  law  in  his  favor,  that  court  must 
overrule  the  decision  of  the  case  in  Peters,  or  else  such  appeal  must 
be  sustained.  Then  we  will  have  acted  upon  the  subject — we  will 
have  forbidden  Slavery.  I  observed  that  some  gentlemen  who  han 
dled  this  subject,  were  very  careful  to  repeat,  with  emphasis,  that 
Slavery  may  go  where  it  is  not  prohibited.  That  is  the  reason  I  pre 
fer  the  Ordinance  of  1787  to  the  so-called  Compromise  Bill.  I  have 
no  doubt  that  every  Senator  who  assented  to  that  bill  convinced  him 
self  that  it  was  the  best  we  could  pass.  I  have  no  doubt  that  our 
friends  from  the  North  thought  it  would  be  effective  in  preventing 
Slavery  in  these  territories.  But  I  see  that  the  Senator  from  South 
Carolina  does  not  think  so.  He  supports  the  bill  for  the  very  reason 
that  it  will  admit  Slavery ;  the  Senator  from  Vermont,  for  the  reason 
that  Slavery  is  forbidden  by  it.  Now,  in  this  confusion  of  ideas,  I 
desire  that  Congress,  if  it  have  any  opinion,  express  it. 

If  we  have  any  power  to  legislate  over  these  Territories,  how 
long  would  it  take  to  write  down  the  sixth  article  of  the  Ordinance 
of  1787?  Those  of  us  who  think  that  ought  to  be  a  fundamental 
law  in  the  organization  of  Territories,  will  vote  for  it;  and  those  of 
us  who  believe  otherwise,  will  vote  against  it;  and  whichever  party 


350  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

triumphs,  will  give  law  to  Oregon  and  California,  bearing  the  respon 
sibility.  But  I  must  say  that  I  do  not  like  what  appears  to  me — I 
say  it  in  no  offensive  sense — a  shuffling  off  the  responsibility  which 
is  upon  us  now,  and  which  we  cannot  avoid.  The  Supreme  Court 
may  overrule  our  decision ;  but  if  we  think  we  have  power  to  ordain 
that  Slavery  shall  not  exist  in  that  Territory,  let  us  say  so ;  if  not, 
let  us  so  decide.  Let  us  not  evade  the  question  altogether. 

That  honorable  Senators  who  reported  this  bill  had  its  passage 
very  much  at  heart  I  have  no  doubt ;  nor  do  I  feel  disposed  to  deny 
that  every  man  of  them  believed  that  it  was  just  such  a  measure  as 
was  calculated  to  give  tranquillity  to  the  agitated  minds  of  the  peo 
ple  of  this  country.  Well,  I  do  not  care  for  that  agitation  further 
than  that  I  will  look  to  it  as  a  motive  to  inquire  carefully  what  my 
powers  and  my  duties  are.  I  have  heard  much  of  this — I  have  been 
myself  a  prophet  of  dissolution  of  this  Union ;  but  I  have  seen  the 
Union  of  these  States  survive  so  many  shocks  that  I  am  not  afraid 
of  dissolution.  Perhaps,  indeed,  when  this  cry  ot  wolf  has  been 
long  disregarded,  he  may  come  at  last  when  not  expected ;  but  I  do 
not  believe  that  the  people  of  the  South  are  willing- to  sever  them 
selves  from  this  Republic  because  we  will  not  establish  Slavery  here 
-or  there.  If  we  have  no  power  to  pass  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  let 
the  people  of  the  South  go  to  the  Supreme  Court  and  have  the  ques 
tion  decided.  It  will  only  be  a  few  months  till  the  Court  resumes  its 
-session  here,  and  the  question  can  then  be  tried.  If  the  decision  be 
against  us,  the  gentlemen  of  the  South  can  at  once  commence  their 
emigration  to  these  Territories,  Let  us,  then,  make  the  law  as  we 
think  it  ought  to  be  made  now. 

I  am  the  more  confirmed  in  the  course  which  I  am  determined 
to  pursue  by  some  historical  facts  elicited  in  this  very  discussion.  I 
remember  what  was  said  by  the  Senator  from  Virginia  the  other  day. 
It  is  true,  that  when  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  made, 
South  Carolina  and  Georgia  refused  to  come  into  the  Union  unless 
the  slave  trade  should  be  continued  for  twenty  years ;  and  the  North 
agreed  that  they  would  vote  to  continue  the  slave  trade  for  twenty 
years;  yes,  voted  that  this  new  Republic  should  engage  in  piracy 
and  murder  at  the  will  of  two  States !  So  the  history  reads ;  and 
the  condition  of  the  agreement  was,  that  those  two  States  should 
agree  to  some  arrangement  about  navigation  laws !  I  do  not  blame 
South  Carolina  and  Georgia  for  this  transaction  any  more  than  I  do 
those  Northern  States  who  shared  in  it.  But  suppose  the  question 


OX   THE    CLAYTON   COMPROMISE    BILL.  351 

were  now  presented  here  by  any  one,  -whether  we  should  adopt  the 
foreign  slave  trade  and  continue  it  for  twenty  years,  would  not  the 
whole  land  turn  pale  with  horror,  that,  in  the  middle  of  the  nine 
teenth  century,  a  citizen  of  a  free  community,  a  Senator  of  the 
United  States,  should  dare  to  propose  the  adoption  of  a  system  that 
has  been  denominated  piracy  and  murder,  and  is  by  law  punished  by 
death  all  over  Christendom  ?  What  did  they  do  then  ?  They  had  the 
power  to  prohibit  it ;  but,  at  the  command  of  these  two  States,  they 
allowed  that  to  be  introduced  into  the  Constitution,  to  which  much 
of  Slavery  now  existing  in  our  land  is  clearly  to  be  traced.  For  who 
can  doubt  that,  but  for  that  woful  bargain,  Slavery  would  by  this 
time  have  disappeared  from  all  the  States  then  in  the  Union,  with  one 
or  two  exceptions?  The  number  of  slaves  in  the  United  States  at 
this  period  was  about  six  hundred  thousand ;  it  is  now  three  mill 
ions.  And  just  as  you  extend  the  area  of  Slavery,  so  you  multi 
ply  the  difficulties  which  lie  in  the  way  of  its  extermination.  It  had 
been  infinitely  better  that  day  that  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  had 
remained  out  of  the  Union  for  a  while,  rather  than  that  the  Consti 
tution  should  have  been  made  to  sanction  the  slave  trade  for  twenty 
years.  The  dissolution  of  the  old  Confederation  would  have  been 
nothing  in  comparison  with  that  recognition  of  piracy  and  murder/ 
I  can  conceive  of  nothing  in  the  dark  record  of  man's  enormities,  *-**~i 
from  the  death  of  Abel  down  to  this  hour,  so  horrible  as  that  of 
stealing  people  from  their  own  home,  and  making  them  and  their 
posterity  slaves  forever.  It  is  a  crime  which  we  know  has  been  vis 
ited  with  such  signal  punishment  in  the  history  of  nations  as  to  war 
rant  the  belief  that  Heaven  itself  had  interfered  to  avenge  the  wrongs 
of  earth. 

In  thus  characterizing  this  accursed  traffic,  I  speak  but  the  com 
mon  sentiment  of  all  mankind.  I  could  not,  if  I  taxed  my  feeble 
intellect  to  the  utmost,  denounce  it  in  language  as  strong  as  that 
uttered  by  Thomas  Jefferson  himself.  Nay,  more — the  spirit  of  that 
great  man  descending  to  his  grandson,  in  your  Virginia  Convention, 
denounced  the  slave  trade,  as  now  carried  on  between  the  States,  as 
being  no  less  infamous  than  that  foreign  slave  trade  carried  on  in 
ships  that  went  down  into  the  sea.  I  speak  of  Thomas  Jefferson 
Randolph.  If  you  would  not  go  to  Africa,  and  thence  people  Cali 
fornia  with  slaves,  may  you  not  perpetuate  equal  enormities  here? 
You  take  the  child  from  its  mother's  bosom — you  separate  husband 


352  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

and  wife — and  you  transport  them  three  thousand  miles  off  to  the 
shores  of  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

I  know  that  this  is  a  peculiar  institution ;  and  I  doubt  not  that 
in  the  hands  of  such  gentlemen  as  talk  about  it  here,  it  may  be  made 
very  attractive.  It  may  be  a  very  agreeable  sight  to  behold  a  large 
company  of  dependents,  kindly  treated  by  a  benevolent  master,  and 
to  trace  the  manifestations  of  gratitude  which  they  exhibit.  But  in 
my  eyes  a  much  more  grateful  spectacle  would  be  that  of  a  patriarch 
in  the  same  neighborhood,  with  his  dependents  all  around  him, 
invested  with  all  the  attributes  of  freedom  bestowed  upon  them  by 
the  common  Father,  in  whose  sight  all  are  alike  precious !  It  is, 
indeed,  a  "very  peculiar"  institution.  According  to  the  account  of 
the  Senator  from  Mississippi  [  MR.  DAVIS],  this  institution  exhibits  all 
that  is  most  amiable  and  beautiful  in  our  nature.  That  Senator  drew 
a  picture  of  an  old,  gray-headed  negro  woman  exhausting  the  kind 
ness  of  her  heart  upon  the  white  child  she  had  nursed.  This  is  true, 
and  it  shows  the  good  master  and  the  greatful  servant.  But,  sir,  all 
are  not  such  as  these.  The  Senator  concealed  the  other  side  of  the 
picture;  and  it  was  only  revealed  to  us  by  the  quick  apprehension  of 
the  Senator  from  Florida  [  MR.  WESTCOTT  ],  who  wanted  the  power 
to  send  a  patrol  all  over  the  country  to  prevent  the  slaves  from  rising 
to  upturn  the  order  of  society?  I  had  almost  believed,  after  hearing 
the  beautiful,  romantic,  sentimental,  narration  of  the  Senator  from 
Mississippi,  that  God  had,  indeed,  as  he  said,  made  this  people  in 
Africa  to  come  over  here  and  wait  upon  us,-  till  the  Senator  from 
Florida  waked  me  up  to  a  recollection  of  the  old  doctrines  of  Wash 
ington  and  Jefferson,  by  assuring  us  that  wherever  that  patriarchal 
institution  existed,  a  rigid  police  should  be  maintained  in  order  to 
prevent  the  uprising  of  the  slave.  Sir,  it  is  indeed  a  peculiar  institu 
tion.  I  know  many  good  men,  who,  as  masters,  honor  human 
nature,  by  the  kindness,  equity  and  moderation  of  their  rule  and 
government  of  their  slaves;  but  put  a  bad  man,  as  sometimes  hap 
pens,  as  often  happens,  in  possession  of  uncontrolled  dominion  over 
another,  black  or  white,  and  then  wrongs  follow  that  make  angels 
weep.  It  is,  sir,  a  troublesome  institution;  it  requires  too  much 
law,  too  much  force,  to  keep  up  social  and  domestic  security ;  there 
fore,  I  do  not  wish  to  extend  it  to  these  new  and  as  yet  feeble 
Territories. 

Is  it  pretended  that  slave  labor  could  be  profitable  in  Oregon  or 
California?  Do  we  expect  to  grow  cotton  and  sugar  there?  I  do 


ON    THE    CLAYTON    COMPROMISE    BILL.  353 

not_know  that  it  may  not  be  done  there;  for  as  the  gentleman  from 
New  York  has  told  us,  just  as  you  go  west  upon  this  continent  the 
line  of  latitude  changes  in  temperature,  so  that  you  may  have  a 
very  different  isothermal  line  as  you  approach  the  Pacific  Ocean. 
But  I  do  not  care  so  much  about  that.  My  objection  is  a  radical 
onq.jto  the  institution  everywhere.  I  do  believe,  if  there  is  any 
place  upon  the  globe  which  we  inhabit  where  a  white  man  cannot 
work,  he  has  no  business  there.  If  that  place  is  fit  only  for  black 
men  to  work,  let  black  men  alone  work  there.  I  do  not  know  any 
better  law  for  man's  good  than  that  old  one,  which  was  announced 
to  man  after  the  first  transgression,  that  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow 
he  should  earn  his  bread.  I  don't  know  what  business  men  have  in 
the  world  unless  it  is  to  work.  If  any  man  has  no  work  of  head  or 
hand  to  do  in  this  world,  let  him  get  out  of  it  soon.  The  hog  is  the 
only  gentleman  who  has  nothing  to  do  but  eat  and  sleep.  Him  we 
dispose  of  as  soon  as  he  is  fat.  Difficult  as  the  settlement  of  this  ques 
tion  seems  to  some,  it  is  in  my  judgment  only  so  because  we  will 
not  look  at  it  and  treat  it  as  an  original  proposition,  to  be  decided 
by  the  influence  its  determination  may  have  on  the  Territories  them 
selves.  We  are  ever  running  away  from  this,  and  inquiring  how  it 
will  affect  the  "slave  States"  or  the  "free  States."  The  only  ques 
tion  mainly  to  be  considered  is,  how  will  this  policy  affect  the  Terri 
tories  for  which  this  law  is  intended?  Is  Slavery  a  good  thing,  or  is 
it  a  bad  thing  for  tJicm?  With  my  views  of  the  subject,  I  must  con 
sider  it  bad  policy  to  plant  Slavery  in  any  soil  where  I  do  not  find  it 
already  growing.  I  look  upon  it  as  an  exotic  that  blights  with  its 
shade  the  soil  in  which  you  plant  it;  therefore,  as  I  am  satisfied  of 
our  constitutional  power  to  prohibit  it,  so  I  am  equally  certain  it  is 
our  duty  to  do  so. 

In  the  States  where  law  and  long  usage  have  made  the  slave 
property,  as  property  I  treat  it.  It  is  there,  and  while  there  it 
should  and  will  receive  that  protection  which  the  Constitution  and 
the  good  neighborhood  of  the  States  afford  and  require  at  our  hands. 
But  I  should  be  false  to  my  best  convictions  of  duty,  policy  and 
right,  if  by  my  vote  I  should  extend  it  one  acre  beyond  its  present 
limits.  I  may  be  mistaken  in  all  this ;  but  of  one  thing  I  am  satis 
fied — of  the  honest  conviction  of  my  own  judgment;  and  no  imag 
inary  interruption  of  the  ties  which  bind  the  various  sections  of  the 
Confederacy  shall  induce  me  to  shrink  from  these  convictions,  when 
ever  I  am  called  upon  to  carry  them  out  into  law. 
24 


354  SPEECHES   OF   THOMAS   CORWIJs. 

But  we  are  told  that  when  the  Constitution  was  made,  there 
existed  certain  relative  proportions  between  the  power  of  the  slave 
and  the  power  of  the  free  States.  I  understood  the  Senator  from 
South  Carolina,  that  we  were  under  obligations  to  preserve  forever 
these  relative  proportions  in  the  same  way. 

Mr.  CALHOUN — I  said  nothing  of  the  kind. 

I  am  very  happy  to  be  undeceived.  I  understood  the  Senator 
to  conceive  that  this  is  a  question  of  power.  It  is  not  so.  It  is  a 
question  of  municipal  law,  of  civil  polity.  The  men  who  framed 
the  Constitution  never  dreamed  that  there  was  to  be  a  conflict  of 
power  between  the  slave  and  the  free  States.  They  never  dreamed 
that  the  South  was  to  contend  that  they  would  always  be  equal  in 
representation  in  the  Senate  to  the  North.  They  had  no  idea  of  that 
equilibrium  of  power  of  which  we  have  heard  so  much.  The  cir 
cumstances  of  that  period  forbade  any  such  supposition.  Looking 
at  all  these  circumstances,  (and  I  have  no  doubt  those  far-seeing  men 
regarded  them  carefully)  you  would  have  had  fourteen  free  States 
and  nine  slave  States.  But  every  man  who  had  much  to  do  with  the 
formation  of  the  Constitution  expected  and  desired  that  Slavery 
should  be  prohibited  in  the  new  States ;  and  they  even  expected  to 
have  it  abolished  in  many  of  the  States  where  it  existed.  They  had 
no  idea  of  conflict ;  and  if  the  ultra  fanatics  in  the  South,  as  well  as 
those  in  the  North,  would  let  the  subject  alone,  we  should  have 
much  less  difficulty  in  a  proper  settlement  of  the  question. 

While  the  extreme  fanaticism  of  the  North,    it  is  said,    would 

burst  the  barriers  'of  the  Constitution  and  rush  into  the  slave  States 
s 

to  enforce  their  abolition  views,  trampling  on  your  laws  and  madly 
overturning  existing  institutions  there,  the  South  vents  its  fiery  indig 
nation  in  tones  oJP^inmeasured  reproach.  But  have  Southern  gentle 
men  considered  their  position  before  the  world  on  this  question  ? 
You  declare  thex5pinion  that  Slavery  does  not  exist  either  in  Oregon, 
California  or  New  Mexico;  all  these  immense  regions  are  now,  and 
for  many  years  have  been,  free  from  Negro  Slavery.  And  now 
what  do  the  ultra  fanatics  of  the  South  ask?  Sir,  they  avow  their 
determination  to  .rush  into  these  free  territories,  overturn  the  social 
systems  there  existing,  uproot  all  establishments  founded  in  and 
molded  by  an  absence  of  Slavery,  and  having  thus  swept  away  the 
former  free  systems,  plant  there  forever,  the  system  of  involuntary 
servitude.  Sir,  Southern  gentlemen  must  say  no  more  about  the 
fanatics  of  the  North  endeavoring  to  uproot  your  institutions,  while 


ON    THE    CLAYTON    COMPROMISE    BILL.  355 

you  imitate  the  example  of  those  fanatics  in  your  treatment  of  the 
free  soil  of  this  Union.  Sir,  there  is  no  difference  between  the  two 
cases.  The  fanatics  of  the  South  are  but  a  counterpart  of  those  of 
the  North.  If  there  be  any  difference,  it  is  only  this :  The  fanatic 
of  the  North  has  this  apology — he  proposes,  at  least  in  theory,  to 
enlarge  and  extend  the  boundaries  of  human  rights.  The  fanatic  of 
the  South,  strangely  inconsistent  with  the  obvious  tendencies  of  the 
age,  seeks  to  extend,  at  one  sweep,  human  black  Slavery  over  a  coun 
try,  new  and  sparsely  settled,  larger  in  extent  than  most  of  the  gov 
ernments  of  the  Old  World.  This  does  appear  to  my  poor  judg 
ment,  not  merely  at  war  with  the  spirit  of  the  age,  with  the  better 
spirit,  I  would  say,  of  men  in  all  ages ;  nay,  more — I  must  be  par 
doned  if  I  declare  it  wears  the  aspect  of  absurdity,  arrogance  and 
temerity.  Sir,  I  have  spoken  out  my  opinions  freely,  boldly,  but  in 
no  spirit  of  unkindness  to  any  man  or  any  section  of  our  common 
country.  I  know  how  widely  different  are  the  views  of  other  gen 
tlemen  from  mine.  I  know  how  habit,  usage,  time,  color  our 
thoughts,  and  indeed  form  our  principles  often.  But  I  must  here 
repeat  my  belief,  that  if  we  could  set  about  this  business  in  the 
spirit  of  those  who  founded  this  Republic,  we  should  have  no  diffi 
culty  in  enacting  the  Ordinance  of  1787.  Sir,  it  is  best  to  repeat 
what  they  did.  In  1787,  they  made  the  Constitution.  In  1787,' 
they  made  that  celebrated  Ordinance  for  the  northwest.  Sir,  this 
doctrine  of  free  territory  is  not  new';  it  is  coeval  with  the  Constitu 
tion,  born  the  same  year,  of  the  same  parents,  and  baptized  in  the 
same  good  old  republican  church.  And  now,  when  we  are  about  to 
establish  these  new  republics,  much  larger  than  the  old,  why  should 
we  not  imitate  their  example,  re-enact  their  laws,  and  thus  secure  to 
this  new  Republic  on  the  Pacific  the  glory,  the  prosperity,  the 
rational  progress,  which  have  shed  such  luster  around  that  founded 
upon  the  shore  of  the  Atlantic? 

A  Senator  who  sits  before  me  [MR.  FITZGERALD]  has  with  great 
propriety  explained  to  the  Senate  the  position  in  which  he  is  placed 
on  this  subject,  as  connected  with  his  friend,  General  Cass,  not  now 
a  member  of  this  body.  The  subject,  as  bearing  on  the  opinions 
and  prospects  of  both  General  Cass  and  General  Taylor,  has  been 
often  adverted  to  in  this  debate.  While  I  am  yet  on  my  feet,  I 
desire  to  say  a  word  or  two  on  this  aspect  of  the  debate. 

I  speak  of  one  absent  from  this  chamber  with  every  feeling  of 
respect,  and  with  some  reluctance.  It  is  said,  and  I  believe  truly, 


356  SPEECHES    OP   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

that  General  Cass  has,  within  the  last  two  years,  entertained  two 
opinions  on  this  subject,  the  one  in  direct  conflict  with  the  other.  In 
other  words,  he  has  changed  his  opinion  respecting  it;  whereas  he 
was  at  one  time  in  favor  of  extending  the  Ordinance  of  1787  over  all 
new  territory ;  now,  he  denies  the  power  of  Congress  to  do  so.  Thus 
it  follows  that  he  would  arrest  all  such  legislation  by  interposing  his 
veto.  His  position  at  pi e sent  is  fixed.  But,  sir,  this  facility  in  form 
ing  and  changing  opinions  in  a  gentleman  at  his  time  of  life,  gives 
some  hope  that  in  the  future  he  may  not  obstinately  persevere  in  his 
error.  Sir,  one  who  on  such  subjects  can  change  in  the  two  past 
years  his  opinion,  gives  hopeful  expectation  that  he  may  change  back 
in  the  two  years  to  come.  As  Major  Dugald  Dalgetty  would  say, 
"He  will  be  amenable  to  reason."  His  opinion,  it  seems,  is,  that 
the  whole  subject  is  to  be  given  over  to  the  unlimited  discretion 
of  the  Territorial  Legislatures.  As  to  General  Taylor's  position  in 
regard  to  this  and  all  like  subjects  of  domestic  policy,  I  here  declare 
that  if  I  did  not  consider  him  pledged  by  his  published  letter  to  Cap 
tain  Allison  not  to  interpose  his  veto  on  such  subjects  of  legislation, 
he  certainly  could  not  get  my  vote,  nor  do  I  believe  that  of  any 
Northern  State. 

Mr.  HANNEGAN — I  would  like  to  be  informed  by  the  Senator  from  Ohio,  as  he  has 
referred  to  General  Cass's  position,  and  as  he  is  about  to  give  his  support  to  General 
Taylor,  if  he  can  give  us  General  Taylor's  views  on  the  subject,  and  what  his  opinion 
will  be,  when  expressed  in  a  message  to  Congreas. 

I  cannot. 

Mr.  HANNEGAN — I  understand  the  Senator  from  Ohio  to  say,  that  if  General  Tay 
lor  would  interpose  a  veto  upon  the  suhject,  he  would  not  vote  for  him  under  any 
circumstances. 

I  would  not,  nor  would  any  Whig  in  Ohio,  unless  indeed  we 
found  him  opposed  to  just  such  another  man  who  had  a  great  many 
bad  qualities  beside.  [A  laugh.]  But,  sir,  I  have  to  say  that  I  do 
not  believe  that  General  Taylor  could  get  the  electoral  vote  of  a  free 
State  in  America,  if  it  were  not  for  the  belief  that  prevails  that  upon 
this  subject,  as  well  as  upon  any  other  of  domestic  policy,  where 
the  power  of  Congress  had  been  sanctioned  by  the  various  depart 
ments  of  Government,  and  acquiesced  in  by  the  people,  he  would 
not,  through  the  veto  power,  interfere  to  crush  the  free  will  of  the 
people,  as  expressed  through  both  branches  of  Congress. 

I  repeat,  sir,  that  if  Congress,  having  the  power  as  defined  by 
the  Supreme  Court,  acted  on  by  Congress  in  various  cases,  as  shown 


ON    THE    CLAYTON    COMPROMISE    BILL.  357 

by  your  legislation,  sanctioned  in  so  many  ways,  and  till  now  cheer 
fully  acquiesced  in  by  the  people,  should  enact  the  Ordinance  of  1787 
over  again,  and  extend  it  over  the  three  Territories  in  question, 
and  the  man  in  the  White  House  should  interpose  his  veto,  and 
again  and  again  thrust  his  puny  arm  in  the  way  of  the  legislative 
power,  and  arrest  for  a  long  time  the  popular  will,  I  will  not  say  he 
would  be  impeached,  tried,  and  ( if  the  law  were  so )  have  his  head 
brought  to  the  block.  Patience  might  in  its  exhaustion  give  way  to 
exasperation,  and  the  forms  of  law  and  the  majesty  of  judicial  trial 
all  fall  before  the  summary  vengeance  of  an  abused  and  insulted 
people. 

I  know  very  well  that  the  Senate  is  weary  of  this  debate.  I 
wish  now  only  to  state  another  fact,  which  will  show  what  it  is  which 
our  brethren  of  the  South  now  demands.  _  _If  you  take  the  area  of 
the  free  States  and  the  slave  States  as  they  exist,  and  compare  them, 
you_vyjlL£nd  that  the  latter  predominate.  When  the  Constitution 
was  formed,  and  when  all  the  territory  which  you  then  had  was 
brought  into  the  Union,  the  free  States  had  an  excess  of  100,000 
square  miles  over  the  slave  States;  but  when  you  had  acquired 
Louisiana,  Florida  and  Texas  and  added  them  to  the  Union,  and 
when  you  have  added  the  claim  of  the  South,  that  they  will  carry 
their  slaves  into  Oregon,  New  Mexico  and  California,  what  will  then 
be  the  condition  of  the  free  States?  The  slave  States  will  have  one- 
third  more  power  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  than  the  free 
States  could  ever  have. 

Sir,  if  this  is  to  be  viewed  at  all  as  a  question  of  power,  what 
I  have  stated  would  be  the  exact  result  of  yielding  to  the  present 
claim  of  the  South ;  and  this  will  be  the  result,  unless  you  prohibit 
the  introduction  of  Slavery  into  these  Territories.  Sir,  I  have  seen 
the  working  of  this  system.  Plant  thirty  slaveholders  among  three 
hundred  inhabitants  who  are  not  slaveholders  and  they  will  maintain 
their  position  against  the  thee  hundred.  Let  one  man  out  of  fifty  be  a 
slaveholder,  and  he  will  pursuade  the  forty-nine  that  it  is  better  that 
the  institution  should  exist.  It  is  capital  and  social  position,  opposed 
to  labor  and  poverty.  How  this  war  may  wage  in  the  future  I  will 
not  say ;  but  thus  far  the  former  have  ever  been  an  over-match  for 
the  latter. 

But,  sir,  I  do  not  like  this  view  of  such  a  subject.  If  it  were 
merely  a  comparison  of  strength  or  contest  for  relative  power,  I 
could  yield  without  a  struggle.  But  I  am  called  on  to  lay  the  foun- 


358  SPEECHES    OP   THOMAS    COR.WIN. 

dations  of  society  over  a  vast  extent  of  country.  If  this  work  is 
done  wisely  now,  ages  unborn  shall  bless  us,  and  we  shall  have  done 
in  our  day  what  experience  approved  and  duty  demanded.  If  this 
work  shall  be  carelessly  or  badly  done,  countless  millions  that  shall 
inherit  that  vast  region  will  hereafter  remember  our  folly  as  their 
curse ;  our  names  and  deeds,  instead  of  praises,  shall  only  call  forth 
execration  and  reproach.  In  the  conflict  of  present  opinions,  I  have 
listened  patiently  to  all.  Finding  myself  opposed  to  some  with 
whom  I  have  rarely  ever  differed  before,  I  have  doubted  myself, 
re-examined  my  conclusions,  reconsidered  all  the  arguments  on  either 
side,  and  I  still  am  obliged  to  adhere  to  my  first  impressions,  I  may 
say  my  long-cherished  opinions.  If  I  part  company  with  some  heie, 
whom  I  habitually  respect,  I  still  find  with  me  the  men  of  \h.z  past, 
whom  the  nations  venerated.  I  stand  upon  the  Ordinance  of  1787. 
There  the  path  is  marked  by  the  blood  of  the  Revolution.  I  stand 
in  company  with  the  "men  of  "87,"  their  locks  wet  with  the  mists  of 
the  Jordan  over  which  they  passed ;  their  garments  purple  with  the 
waters  of  the  Red  Sea  through  which  they  led  us  of  old  to  this  land 
of  promise.  With  them  to  point  the  way,  however  dark  the  present, 
Hope  shines  upon  the  future,  and  discerning  their  foot-prints  in  my 
path,  I  shall  tread  it  with  unfaltering  trust. 


A  CAMPAIGN  SPEECH. 


DELIVERED   AT  IRONTOX,  OHIO,  AUGUST    19,    1859. 


THE  following  speech  was  delivered  at  a  large  political  meeting  in  Lawrence 
County,  Ohio,  in  the  Gubernatorial  canvass  of  1859.  It  was  reported  for  and  pub 
lished  in  the  Cincinnati  Gazette,  and  is  one  of  the  few  campaign  speeches  of  Mr. 
CORWIN  reported  in  full  and  revised  for  publication.  Among  the  distinguished  per 
sons  present  at  the  meeting,  and  to  whom  allusion  is  made  in  the  speech,  were  HON. 
WILLIAM  DENNISON,  the  Republican  candidate  for  Governor  of  Ohio,  and  HON. 
LABAN  T.  MOORE,  member  of  Congress  elect  from  the  Ninth  District,  Kentucky. 

MY  FELLOW-CITIZENS: 

If  it  were  a  part  of  my  design,  in  visiting  this  portion  of  the 
State,  to  exhibit  myself  as  an  orator,  I  should  feel,  as  my  venerable 
friend*  would  feel  for  me  after  what  you  have  heard.  I  have  no 
ambition  in  addressing  my  fellow-citizens,  at  all  events,  in  popular 
assemblies,  to  discharge  any  other  duty  to  myself  or  them  than  that, 
if  it  may  be  possible,  of  communicating  some  information  which 
shall  be  useful  to  them  in  the  discharge  of  their  duty  as  voters. 

You  who  are  intrusted  with  the  exercise  of  that  great  office  of 
voting  which  you  have  so  shamefully  and  so  strangely  neglected  in  all 
your  lifetime — you  who  come  here  to  understand,  it  may  be,  your 
duties  from  men  who  come  from  a  distance  of  two  or  three  hundred 
miles,  do  well ;  but  to  you  who  come  to  listen  to  smart  speeches  or 
fine  orations,  allow  me  to  say  in  candor,  as  one  interested  in  the 
manner  in  which  this  duty  is  to  be  discharged,  that  you  had  better 
have  staid  at  home ;  if  you  have  an  honorable  calling  in  the  world, 
or  honest  occupation  in  life,  you  should  have  attended  to  it  to-day, 
instead  of  coming  to  hear  me. 

You  have  heard,  in  the  glowing  language  of  my  friend,  in  the 
ardor  and  sincerity  of  his  own  spirit,  that  bead-roll  of  offenses,  God 
knowns  it  was  a  melancholy  catalogue  of  crime  which  he  exhibited 

*The  President  of  the  meeting.  (359) 


360  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

against  the  public  men  of  the  State  of  Ohio  and  the  United  States. 
Now,  whenever  any  man  in  speaking  of  the  affairs  of  your  Republic 
shall  be  able,  with  truth  and  in  candor,  to  pronounce  the  officers  of 
the  Government  unworthy  the  trust  reposed  in  them ;  to  have  vio 
lated  their  pledges,  if  it  be  so,  or  willfully  neglected  the  duties  of 
the  various  posts  to  which  they  had  been  assigned ;  if  ever  any.jnan 
can  say  that  of  your  public  men,  with  truth,  then  he  has  pronounced 
a  condemnation  upon  the  whole  system  of  the  American  Republic, 
for  he  has  said  that  men  entrusted  with  the  duty  of  appointing  offi 
cers  do  not  know  how  to  go  about  the  discharge  of  their  duty,  or  do 
not  care  in  what  manner  they  do  discharge  it.  If  there  be  any  man 
whose  heart  is  filled  with  shame  and  anguish,  when  he  hears  these 
things  said — if  there  be  any  man  who  feels  thus,  I  hold  it  is  impos 
sible,  in  the  nature  of  things,  that  he  will  not,  for  the  moment, 
doubt  the  propriety  of  giving  universal  suffrage  to  any  people. 

Now,  some  of  my  Democratic  brethren  will  go  away  and  say 
that  I  am  a  Federalist,  on  account  of  what  I  have  said  here  to-day, 
but  I  have  felt  it  my  duty  to  say  thus  much  everywhere.  I  have  no 
doubt  of  the  intelligence  of  the  people.  I  have  no  doubt  of  the 
general  integrity  and  of  the  honesty  of  the  hearts  of  the  mass  of  all 
the  parties  that  ever  existed  in  this  Republic;  but  I  assert  that  I 
have  doubts  whether  the  people  of  this  county  do  faithfully  attend 
to  the  election  of  their  officers.  Why  do  I  say  this?  Because,  if 
you  will  believe  what  has  been  said  by  either  of  the  great  political 
parties,  for  the  last  thirty  years,  the  public  men  whom  you  have  had 
in  office,  have  been  unworthy  of  the  places  which  they  have  filled. 
Whose  fault  is  it  that  your  State  of  Ohio  is  inflicted  with  a  heavy 
loss  of  §750,000 — money  wrung  from  the  pockets  of  the  people  by 
direct  taxation  ?  It  is  gone,  and  you  know  not  where  it  is.  It  is 
your  fault.  You  elected  the  men  to  office. 

Let  me  suppose  that  some  monarch  at  Washington  City  was  in 
vested  with  the  power  of  appointing  the  agents  of  States  to  office, 
to  do  as  he  pleased  writh  the  government  of  the  States,  and  that 
monarch  appointed  servants  as  unfaithful  to  their  duties  as  yours  are 
said  to  have  been,  what  would  you  do  with  him  ?  My  life  upon  it, 
if  there  was  one  drop  of  the  blood  that  coursed  in  the  veins  of  your 
forefathers  left  warm  within  you,  there  would  be  found  some  patri 
otic  man  to  drive  the  dagger  to  the  heart  of  that  despot.  What, 
then,  is  to  be  done  with  you,  who  vote  for  and  elect  all  these  men  ? 

I  believe  it  is  now  conceded  by  very  many  of  the  Democratic 


A   CAMPAIGN    SPEECH.  361 

party  that  the  present  Chief  Magistrate  has  lamentably  disappointed 
even  those  who  elected  him.  He  has  not  disappointed  those  who 
opposed  his  election,  for  they  predicted  that  everything  would  go 
wrong  under  his  administration.  There  are  very  few  Democratic 
aspirants  to  office  in  the  North  or  West,  who  dare  avow  themselves 
friends  of  the  President.  Thus  it  seems  that  this  officer  is  now  con 
demned  by  many  of  those  who  voted  for  him.  How  came  they  to'-j 
elect  such  a  man  as  that?  Had  they  not  sense  and  sagacity  enough 
to  know  a  man  whose  life  had  been  before  them  on  their  public  rec 
ords  for  thirty  or  forty  years?  Were  they  so  ineffably  stupid,  that 
they  did  not  investigate  that  man's  life,  to  know  him  before  they 
appointed  him  to  that  high  office  ?  They  could  have  done  it,  but 
did  not  do  it.  The  great  office  of  electing  President  and  Governor 
and  Legislatures,  State  and  Federal,  the  great  office  which  you  hold, 
you  sadly  neglect.  I  assert  that  the  duties  of  the  Presidency  have 
been  discharged  with  quite  as  much  fidelity  as  has  been  shown  by 
many  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  in  the  exercise  of  their 
great  office — the  elective  franchise.  This  is  not  so  because  you  are 
not  intelligent — nor  because  you  are  bad  men,  but  because  every 
man  has  the  same  interest  and  power  that  you  have,  and  you  say, 
"Let  somebody  else  do  it."  "I  will  not  interest  myself  in  this,  or 
I  will  be  called  a  politician — the  brethren  of  my  church  won't  like  it ; 
why  should  I  disturb  myself  about  this  thing?  I  have  my  own 
affairs  to  attend  to,  and  I  will  attend  to  them,  and  as  for  this  business 
of  regulating  the  affairs  of  the  Republic,  I  will  leave  that  to  those 
fellows  who  want  office."  That  is  the  way  you  think  about  it;  that 
is  the  way  you  have  acted  with  it.  If  you  had  not  acted  in  that 
way,  I  tell  you  that  few  of  these  calamities  which  you  have  now  to 
deplore  would  have  occurred;  few  of  these  great  instances  of  blun 
dering  would  have  happened.  Why  have  you  not  done  this?  I  say, 
you  will  not  attend  to  this  business ;  if  you  did,  if  you  had  done  so, 
then  I  think  it  must  follow,  as  a  legitimate  conclusion,  that  you  don't 
know  how.  So  much  for  the  consideration  of  my  brethren  in  this 
private  little  class-meeting  of  ours,  of  two  or  three  thousand  persons, 
where  we  are  considering  the  state  of  religion  in  the  American 
Church,  and  lighting  up  a  candle  and  putting  it  into  every  man's 
hand  that  he  may  search  his  own  bosom. 

Let  those  gentlemen  who  feel  themselves  quite  too  respectable 
and  decent  to  mingle  in  our  elections,  remember  that  God  Almighty 
will  hold  them  responsible  for  the  manner  in  which  they  discharge 


362  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

their  duty  as  voters.  That  right  and  privilege  is  not  given  to  them 
for  their  benefit,  or  to  be  used  at  their  .pleasure,  but  for  my  benefit,. 
for  your  benefit,  and  for  the  benefit  of  the  thirty  millions  of  people 
in  the  United  States.  If  one  sees  an  unworthy  man  go  to  the  polls 
and  take  possession  of  the  Government,  and  he  will  not  prevent  itr 
if  there  be  such  a  thing  as  future  responsibility — as  we  all  believe — 
that  man  will  have  something  to  answer  for  upon  that  final  day  when 
all  of  us  must  account  for  our  acts. 

Do  you  suppose  that  the  old  men  who  published  that  Declara 
tion  of  Independence,  which  gave  birth  to  your  national  existence, 
for  the  maintenance  of  which  they  appealed  to  the  God  of  nations, 
approve  of  this  neglect?  They  felt  their  own  weakness;  they,  acting 
upon  the  commonly  accepted  principles  of  human  reason,  felt  that 
they  would  perish  in  the  conflict  into  which  they  were  then  about  to 
enter ;  and  at  last,  as  poor  feeble  man  always  does  when  he  feels  he 
has  nothing  to  lean  upon  but  his  own  arm,  he  goes  to  the  Almighty 
for  help  in  that  hour  of  trouble.  They  appealed  to  Him,  and  He 
answered  well  in  the  day  of  their  trial ;  and  all  the  struggles  they 
endured,  all  the  blood  they  shed,  all  the  pains  and  privations  they 
suffered,  were  simply  to  end  in  just  one  thing — in  communicating  to 
every  rational  free  man  equal  power  to  govern  the  nation.  That 
office  they  communicated  to  you — the  voting  people  of  the  country. 
Did  they  suppose — could  they  have  believed  that  the  people  of  this 
country,  the  respectable  people  of  the  land,  would  so  scorn  the  great 
and  priceless  estate  which  they  left  them,  as  that  they  would  not 
attend  to  appointing  the  agents  to  take  care  of  it,  but  that  some 
mercenary  spirit  was  to  take  care  of  them? 

If  each  member  of  the  community  had  an  interest  in  a  banking 
institution,  or  in  a  joint  stock  manufacturing  company,  where  his 
reward  was  to  be  but  a  few  paltry  dollars  per  cent,  on  his  capital — if 
a  meeting  was  called  to  appoint  a  president  or  an  agent  of  that  com 
pany,  he  would  attend  this  meeting,  to  elect  this  president  and  direc 
tor  of  the  paltry  bank  or  joint  stock  concern ;  but  when  the  president 
and  directors  are  to  be  elected  to  take  care  of  the  liberties  of  the 
whole  country,  oh,  these  men  are  too  decent,  too  respectable,  to 
attend.  It  is  not  respectable  to  be  a  politician,  they  tell  us,  or  they 
are  too  careless,  or  they  have  half  an  acre  of  buckwheat  which 
might  not  be  got  in  and  saved,  if  they  left  home  on  the  election-day. 

That  is  the  way  you  act  with  your  privileges.  Let  us  ceasQ 
complaining  of  the  men  you  elect,  and  of  the  laws  they  make.  One 


A   CAMPAIGN    SPEECH.  363 

thing  we  know  to  be  perfectly  certain,  the  stockholders  do  not  attend 
to  the  election  of  the  president  and  directors,  or  if  they  do,  they 
don't  know  how  to  do  their  duty. 

Don't  let  us  blame  our  Presidents  so  much !    Don't  let  us  anath 
ematize  the  men  we  have  elected  to  these  offices  of  State,  too  much !  ^ 
Let  us  abuse  the  people  who  elected  them.     They  arejx>  blame  for  * 
wrongs  done,   if  any  have  been  done.      If  you  elect  a  judge,  and  he 
does  not  attend  at  court,  and  if  an  innocent  man  is  hung  because  he  /> 

was  not  there  to  try  him,  what  do  you  with  him  ?  You  take  him  to  •  ' 
Columbus  and  impeach  him.  He  is  removed  from  office,  and  the 
brand  of  disgrace  and  ignominy  is  placed  upon  his  brow.  But  you 
can  be  absent  from  elections,  and  let  unworthy  men  be  elected  to 
office.  You  don't  like  some  party  or  other.  The  judge  might  say 
he  did  not  like  his  associate ;  he  did  not  like  to  sit  near  him — he  had 
not  a  very  sweet  breath.  I  tell  you,  sirs,  that  it  is  quite  as  valid  as 
many  of  the  excuses  that  men  make  for  staying  away  from  elections. 

What  have  you  been  doing  now,  to  go  no  further  back  than  the 
last  few  years — sixteen  or  seventeen?  All  of  you  of  mature  age, 
remember  the  year  1840  very  well.  What  did  all  the  people  of  the 
United  States  do  then?  They  rose  up  with  mingled  feelings  of  mer 
riment  and  indignation — for  it  was  difficult  to  tell  which  prevailed 
that  year,  the  events  of  the  administration  of  Mr.  Van  Buren  had 
been  so  singularly  out  of  the  way,  nowise  conformable  to  anybody's 
notion  of  things,  it  was  difficult  to  say  whether  it  was  looked  at  with 
indignation,  contempt  or  merriment.  Many  of  his  officers  were  run 
ning  away  with  the  people's  money — you  know  how  we  used  to  show 
up  the  leg-treasurers !  Three-quarters  of  the  people  started  up  and 
declared,  we  will  have  no  more  Democratic  government ;  we  will  have 
Whig  government.  The  principles  upon  which  these  two  parties 
were  contending,  then,  for  your  suffrages,  were  diametrically  opposed. 
Upon  due  deliberation  and  solemn  consideration  (for  I  do  hope  you 
sometimes  consider  these  things),  it  was  determined  by  an  unexam 
pled  majority  of  the  country  that,  henceforth,  Whigs  and  their  prin 
ciples  should  be  the  rule  of  conduct  in  the  United  States.  It  was 
so !  Your  decree,  when  you  make  it,  is  always  omnipotent. 

Four  years  pass  away — they  go  by — and  what  happens  then? 
You  have  again  to  appoint  a  President  of  this  great  joint-stock  com 
pany  of  ours.  The  people  have  two  men  presented  to  them.  ( )ne 
hasjbeen  alluded  to  by  my  friend,  Mr.  Dennison — Mr.  Clay,  of  Ken- 
^tucky — a  man  who  has  been  spoken  of  so  much  that  it  would  be 


364  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

idle  to  attempt  to  employ  terms  adequate  to  express  the  feelings 
with  which  one  who  knew  him  as  well  as  I  did,  regarded  the  great 
loss  we  have  sustained  by  his  death ;  a  man  of  whom  the  nation  was 
proud,  a  man  who  had  a  European  reputation,  /who  was  regarded  as 
the  great  champion  of  regulated  liberty,  by  men  of  intelligence,  all 
over  the  world ;  in  addition  to  this  he  had  endowments  which  it  has 
pleased  God  very  rearely  to  give  to  mortal  man ;  an  integrity  as 
pure  as  the  highest  integrity  of  the  highest  and  best  of  the  ancient 
people  who  have  descended  to  us  as  demi-gods.  Nobody  questioned 
this  in  the  election  at  all.  It  was  named  and  repeated  every  hour. 
He  did  not  like  the  annexation  of  Texas  to  the  United  States ;  not 
because  he  himself  had  any  personal  objection  to  any  accumulation 
of  slave  States  in  the  country,  but  because  he  believed  it  would  dis 
turb  the  harmony  of  the  Republic  as  it  then  existed.  The  harmony 
and  prosperity  of  this  land  were  the  idols  of  his  heart.  Another 
man  was  also  presented  to  the  American  people — a  very  ordinary 
man.  (I  wish  to  speak  of  him  in  no  terms  of  disparagement.) 
You  all  know  something  of  Mr.  Polk.  He  never  pretended  to  be 
the  equal  of  Mr.  Clay.  Mr.  Polk  differed  from  him  with  regard  to 
the  annexation  of  Texas.  He  desired  that  that  independent  Repub 
lic,  living  under  the  shadow  of  our  wing,  should  be  annexed  to  the 
United  States.  He  was  a  democrat  of  the  Democrats.  I  knew  him 
well.  You  know  that  I  speak  truly  of  his  history.  As  a  politician 
he  was  opposed  to  everything  now  proposed  by  the  opposition  in 
the  slave  States,  and  by  the  Republican  party  in  the  free  States,  as 
the  proper  system  of  government  in  this  country.  Well,  Clay  pro 
posed  to  the  country  to  continue  the  Whig  government  begun  by 
Mr.  Harrison,  and  but  partially  carried  out  by  his  successor.  You 
had  determined,  four  years  before,  that  henceforward  you  would  only 
have  Whig  principles  and  Whig  rulers.  Four  years  passed  by,  and 
with  the  mighty  difference  between  the  two  men,  you  determined  by 
a  very  large  majority  you  would  have  no  more  Whig  government, 
but  would  have  Democratic  government,  even  when  you  could  have 
the  pleasure  and  the  pride  of  voting  for  one  of  the  greatest  states 
men  the  world  ever  knew.  The  stockholders  changed  their  opinion 
greatly  in  these  four  years,  or  else  they  did  not  vote  their  principles 
at  all. 

Well,  as  we  know  human  nature  is  full  of  imperfection,  and  as 
men  are  gaining  light  every  day  in  the  world,  we  fondly  hoped  by 
the  school-houses  and  churches  which  we  had  erected  we  would  get 


A    CAMPAIGN    SPEECH.  365 

some  intelligence.  We  began  to  suppose  that  we  were  mistaken  in 
1840,  and  that  we  had  learned  that  the  Democratic  was  the  true  rule 
of  government  in  the  country. 

Four  years  more  rolled  round,  which  brings  us  to  1848.  The 
country,  in  the  meantime  had  been  involved  in  a  foreign  war,  and  it 
is  very  rare,  when  the  ambition  of  our  Republic  is  concerned,  and 
that  ambition  is  put  into  conflict  with  another  nation,  that  the  men 
of  the  nation  do  not  take  sides  with  him  who  wages  the  war.  What 
did  we  in  1848?  With  about  the  same  unanimity  as  before  we 
declared  that  we  would  have  no  more  Democratic  government,  we 
will  have  a  Whig  government,  even  though  we  have  to  deposit  this 
great  power  of  statesmanship  in  the  hands  of  a  man  fresh  from  the 
battle-field,  who  was  never  in  the  councils  of  his  country.  The 
stockholders  have  changed  back  again. 

Four  years  have  rolled  around,  and  1852  comes  upon  us,  and 
finds  us  still  increasing  in  light  and  knowledge.  Mind,  in  1848  we 
jumped  back  just  eight  years.  We  found,  I  suppose,  that  the  light 
had  been  leading  us  astray — that  we  failed  in  1844.  Now  we  are  at 
the  stand-point  of  1840  again.  Instead  of  keeping  our  resolution  to 
continue  a  Whig  government,  we  have  found  out  that  we  were  mis 
taken  a  second  time,  and  we  take  not  General  Scott,  who  was  by  no 
means  an  ordinary  man.  He  was  a  Whig,  and  you  put  away  that 
illustrious  general  and  that  eminently  qualified  statesman  and  took  a 
man  who  was  not  quite  his  equal  in  peace  or  war.  I  wish  to  speak 
in  no  way  disrespectful  of  Mr.  Pierce,  but  I  say  that  you  fell  so 
much  in  love  with  democratic  government,  that  you  threw  away  a 
Whig  who  was  eminently  qualified  as  a  statesman  and  renowned  as  a 
warrior,  and  took  a  man  not  renowned  in  either  way. 

Now  this,  and  all  of  this,  is  applicable  to  all  of  us.  What 
would  you  think  of  any  man — to  illustrate — of  any  farmer,  who 
would  take  one  of  those  fine  patent  plows  and  plow  down  his  barren 
ground,  and  raise  a  good  crop  upon  his  land  which  he  had  thrown 
aside  as  useless,  gather  his  crop  into  his  garner,  reap  the  reward  of 
his  labor,  thank  God  for  his  fruitful  harvest  and  pocket  the  money  it 
brings  to  him ;  and  then  when  he  had  another  crop  to  raise,  should 
say,  "By  that  plow  I  got  a  good  crop,  a  better  one  than  I  expected, 
but  as  I  have  the  power  to  do  as  I  please  with  my  own  land,  I  will 
try  the  old  'go-devil'  plow  this  year."  You  all  know  what  a  "go- 
devil  "  is.  You  know  it  is  a  harrow  with  three  prongs,  a  very  good 
thing  in  its  way,  but  by  no  means  a  good  thing  to  break  up  ground 


366  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

with.  Well,  he  takes  his  "go-devil"  and  he  kicks  his  ground  about, 
and  he  gets  no  crop,  and  you  all  know  well  he  can't  get  much  of  a 
crop  that  way,  anyhow.  Now  he  gets  in  debt.  He  says:  "Well, 
I  was  a  great  fool  to  take  that  '  go-devil ;'  I  will  get  that  patent  plow 
to  work  again."  The  third  year  he  uses  that  plow  again,  and  he  gets 
another  good  crop,  and  gets  out  of  debt  He  gets  his  money  into 
hisjDocket,  and  goes,  to  his  thanksgiving  dinner,  eats  his  turkey  and 
thanks  God  for  His  goodness.  The  fourth  year,  however,  he  says: 
' '  Have  I  not  a  right  to  do  as  I  please  ?  I  will  take  that  old  '  go- 
devil  '  again ;"  and  he  takes  it,  and  the  result  again  is  quite  devilish. 

That^  is  precisely  what  you,  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
have  done  with  your  power  of  voting.  That  is  exactly  what  you 
have  done.  Do  you  wonder  that  those  veteran  old  statesmen  in 
Europe,  such  as  Metternich,  or  Walewski,  and  Palmerston  and 
Derby,  who  have  read  over  and  over  again  all  that  is  said  about  pop 
ular  government  and  all  that  has  been  written,  and  have  seen  it 
always  remarked  that  especial  care  must  be  taken  to  guard  against 
the  carelessness  and  vacillation  of  the  people,  do  you  wonder  when 
those  old  gentlemen  see  what  you  have  done,  how  you  have  acted 
with  the  exercise  of  this  right  of  suffrage,  as  if  you  did  not  care 
what  became  of  your  country,  or  did  not  know  what  ought  to  be 
done,  changing  four  times  in  four  successive  elections  from  Whig  to 
Democrat  and  from  Democrat  to  Republican,  that  they  should  doubt 
your  discretion?  It  seems  as  if  you  did  not  know  how  to  do  this 
work.  Do  you  suppose  that  any  man  who  acted  with  his  plows  as  I 
have  stated  to  you,  could  ever  make  a  will  in  the  world  ?  I  tell  you 
no  judge  would  allow  such  a  man's  will  to  go  on  record,  because 
such  a  man  must  be  insane.  If  that  man  were  to  make  a  deed  of  a 
house  and  lot,  and  his  heirs  were  to  prove  this,  it  would  be  declared 
null  and  void.  If  his  heirs  should  want  to  set  aside  such  a  man's 
deed,  let  them  send  for  me,  and  I  will  set  it  aside  before  any  intelli 
gent  jury  in  your  country,  because  the  man  must  be  insane. 

Yet  you  have  done  the  same  thing  with  this  right  of  voting. 
You  have  acted  in  just  that  way,  and  now,  when  we  lift  up  our  hands 
with  indignation  at  the  bad  conduct  of  our  rulers,  don't  let  us  blame 
the  "go-devil"  because  he  did  not  go  twelve  inches  into  the  ground, 
because  he  can't.  That  is  what  we  have  done.  Let  us  cast  the 
beam  out  of  our  own  eye,  and  then  we  will  see  clearly  the  mote  that 
is  in  the  poor  President's  eye.  I  pray  you,  ponder  these  things. 


A   CAMPAIGN    SPEECH.  367 

Do  they  not,  as  we  hear  it  said  sometimes,  ' '  look  to  a  man  up  a 
tree  "  like  truth? 

Now,  my  fellow-citizens,  it  is  because  of  these  things,  and 
because  I  am,  as  a  citizen,  interested  in  this  matter,  that  I  have  the 
impudence  at  all  to  come  and  speak  to  you  about  it.  We  are  to 
«lect  a  President  and  Directors  soon  again,  and  I  am  interested  in 
that  election,  just  as  you  are,  and  if  you  are  weak  enough  to  listen 
to  me,  I  must  speak  what  I  believe,  and  speak  such  belief  plainly  to 
plain  men. 

\Ve  here  have  parties !  I  am  not  one  of  those  who  believe  that 
political  parties  are  natural  necessities.  I  am  not  one  who  believes 
that  as  men  of  sense  and  discretion,  we  have  need  to  differ  about  this 
thing  at  all.  I  admit  that  parties  are  made  necessary  by  the  present 
imperfections  of  mankind.  But  while  I  would  admit  as  much,  I 
would  beg  of  you  tojput  away  the  little,  mean  and  trifling  ambitions 
and  asperities  of  parties,  and  my  life  on  it,  if  you  would  do  that 
there  would  not  be  so  much  party  in  the  country  as  there  is.  You 
should  have  a  President  who  would  summon  the  whole  faculties  of 
his  head  and  the  better  emotions  of  his  heart,  and  concentrate  them 
upon  the  idea  that  he  was  the  representative  of  the  only  free  govern 
ment  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  the  one  supposed  to  be  the  model 
of  all  to  come  after  us  in  all  nations  of  the  world,  that  want  to 
be  free — if  we  could  but  get  a  man  that  would  elevate  himself  so 
high  as  to  think  that,  and  act  upon  it — newspaper  paragraphs  would 
be  somewhat  changed.  We  have  seen  lately  a  statement  in  the 
papers  to  this  effect :  Some  postmaster,  far  away  in  the  prairies  of 
Illinois,  the  gross  receipts  of  whose  office  might  be  equal  to  five  dol 
lars  a  year,  had  the  impudence  to  poke  his  head  out  of  the  little  log 
cabin  in  which  his  office  was  held,  and  say  that  he  thought  Stephen 
A.  Douglas  was  a  respectable  man.  He  was  overheard  by  some 
poor  man — not  poor  in  property,  but  poor  in  soul,  who  had  a  little 
starved  and  miserable  soul  in  him,  who  wrote  to  this  mighty  repre 
sentative  of  the  only  free  country  on  the  face  of  God's  earth,  taking 
care  of  the  liberty  of  thirty  millions,  that  he  did  not  like  Mr.  Doug 
las,  while  the  other  man,  the  postmaster,  did.  He  begged  that  the 
President  would  send  forth  a  mandate  to  that  poor  little  fellow  on 
the  prairies,  who  was  collecting  his  five  dollars  per  year  (I  dare  say 
about  the  fifth  part  of  the  expense  of  his  fuel  for  one  winter),  to  go 
out  of  office  and  let  some  man  come  in  who  did  not  like  Mr. 
Douglas. 


368  SPEECHES   OP   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

That  is  a  fact,  so  they  say.  Don't  let  me  now  be  holding  up 
Mr.  Buchanan  as  an  exception.  Such  has  been  too  much  the  case 
with  every  President  since  this  party  spirit  has  been  so  much  in 
vogue.  Whig  and  Democrat,  etc.,  have  been  guilty  of  the  same  sin. 
I  know,  when  you  are  electing  a  man  to  make  laws  for  you,  you 
must  elect  one  whose  notions  agree  with  yours;  but  I  do  not  know 
that -when  you  have  a  clerk  at  Washington,  and  the  Whig  party 
believe  the  penknife  he  uses  ought  to  pay  thirty  per  cent,  ad 
valorem  duty,  and  that  poor  clerk  has  not  been  able  to  see  that  dis 
tinctly,  although  he  is  a  capital  book-keeper  and  a  faithful  man,  but 
in  his  soul  and  conscience  he  thinks  it  would  not  be  right  to  pay 
so  much  duty  as  that,  that  you  should  turn  him  out  of  office  and  say 
that  he  is  not  fit  for  a  book-keeper.  It  is  not  respectable.  I  know 
that,  because  I  have  seen  it  tried.  No  man  can  feel  like  a  gentle 
man,  if  God  has  made  him  one,  and  do  that  thing.  If  that  man 
holds  his  tongue,  we  will  not  question  him  as  to  that ;  but  if  he  is  to 
go  to  Congress  and  make  laws  for  us,  to  establish  that  duty  on  the 
penknife,  then  we  will  ask  him  about  it. 

All  of  this  we  have  done,  and  this  has  increased  that  party 
asperity,  and  induced  men  to  take  sides  with  the  party  in  power, 
and,  of  course,  the  meanest  men  in  the  county  will  get  the  offices 
on  that  principle,  the  little  executive  offices  and  the  little  ministerial 
offices.  That  is  what  we  have  all  done.  Let  us  quit  it.  Let  us  see 
if  we  cannot  quit  it.  If  you  want  a  man  to  represent  your  republic 
abroad,  find  a  man  who  has  some  of  the  qualifications  of  a  gentle 
man — I  mean  a  gentleman  of  God's  making,  not  a  fellow  in  fine 
clothes,  though,  of  course,  he  ought  to  be  dressed  decently  when  he 
goes  courting.  Let  him  be  a  man  of  respectability.  You  have 
enough  of  these  men.  Don't  appoint  a  man  who  shall  be  spoken  of 
as  a  friend  of  mine  told  me  one  of  our  representatives  was  spoken 
of.  My  friend  had  been  charge  d'affaires  at  Brussels  a  great  while — 
four  years ;  while  there,  he  became  acquainted  with  a  French  diplo 
mat,  and  that  French  diplomat  had  seen  a  man  at  a  foreign  court 
who  represented  our  Government  as  charge  d'affaires.  He  was  a 
very  stupid  man ;  he  did  not  speak  any  language  very  well.  Now, 
said  this  French  gentleman,  "Why  don't  you  send  fine  specimens, 
good-looking  men,  who  speak  some  language?"  "Oh!  "said  my 
friend,  '  'don't  they  all  speak  some  language  ?  "  "  No, "  was  the  answer, 
"I  met  a  gentleman  at  Copenhagen  who  speaks  no  language  at  all. 
He  speaks  some  infernal  patois  which  they  call  Ohio."  Of  course, 


A  CAMPAIGN    SPEECH.  369 

your   representative  was    treated  with   contempt.     The  Frenchman 
thought  he  was  the  best  man  we  had. 

We  should  not  be  very  particular  about  his  politics  either;  for 
our  domestic  politics  have  very  little  to  do  with  our  foreign  missions. 
The  man  who  would  select  a  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  or  Circuit 
Court  of  the  United  States,  to  discharge  the  great  duties  of  that  sta 
tion,  because  he  was  a  Democrat  or  a  Republican,  without  reference 
to  other  qualifications,  his  head  ought  to  roll  upon  a  block.  Judic 
ial  qualifications  have  nothing  to  do  with  Republican  policy  or  Dem 
ocratic  policy.  Judges  decide  matters  of  law,  not  measures  of 
policy. 

The  opposition  to  the  Administration  on  the  other  side  of  the 
river  has  been  chiefly  concerned  in  a  dispute  as  to  what  shall  be 
done  with  the  slave  property  in  the  south.  You  have  heard  what 
friend  Dennison  has  said.  He  says,  it  is  the  doctrine  and  resolute 
determination  of  the  Republican  party  of  Ohio,  and  he  might  have 
added,  of  all  of  what  is  called  the  free  States  of  the  Union,  to  exert 
the  power  which  they  hold  belongs  to  them,  under  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  by  Congressional  action  to  prohibit  Slavery  in 
any  territory  where  it  does  not  already  exist.  My  own  impression 
is  that  that  ought  to  be  done.  That  is  my  belief  about  it. 

I  am  not  so  very  particular  about  this,  as  a  mere  matter  of  doc 
trine,  because  I  think  that  there  will  be  much  more  important  duties 
for  us  to  perform  when  we  get  to  Congress  than  to  dispute  about 
this  abstract  proposition.  Slavery  exists,  as  you  know,  in  certain 
portions  of  the  United  States.  The  only  territories  that  can  ever 
be  subject  to  Slavery  are  those  of  Utah,  New  Mexico  and  Washing 
ton  ;  and  into  either  of  these  it  would  be  madness  to  take  slaves 
now.  Kansas  has  settled  the  question  for  herself,  after  fighting  a 
pretty  hard  battle,  under  this  doctrine  of  "squatter  sovereignty." 

But  it  is  said  Congress  has  no  power  over  this  subject  of  Slavery 
in  the  Territories.  It  is  said,  you  find,  in  the  Constitution,  the 
phrase,  "popular  sovereignty,"  or  "squatter  sovereignty,"  or  that 
the_  ideas  represented  by  such  language,  is  there,  or  fairly  implied 
from  language  which  is  there.  This  is  what  we  do  read  in  the  Con 
stitution  touching  the  power  of  Congress  over  Territories.  "Con 
gress  shall  have  power  to  make  all  needful  rules  and  regulations 
respecting  the  Territory,  or  other  property  of  the  United  States." 
Now  if  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  had  intended  that  the  then 
Northwestern  Territory  and  all  Territories  for  all  time  to  come  should 
25 


370  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

have  the  right,  without  any  control  of  Congress,  to  enact  and  execute 
any  law,  which  the  inhabitants  or  squatters  should  please,  would 
they  not,  after  what  I  have  recited,  have  gone  on  to  declare,  that 
"the  inhabitants  of  any  territory  should  have  power  to  make  all 
needful  rules  and  regulations  for  their  internal  and  '  municipal  gov 
ernment?'  "  It  is  very  clear  that  they  would  have  done  so  had  they 
intended  any  such  power  as  what  is  now  called  popular  sovereignty 
should  be  exerted  by  the  people  of  a  Territory.  But  they  inserted 
no  clause  to  that  effect,  they  left  this  power  in  Congress  alone,  and 
the  history  of  our  legislative  and  judicial  decisions  and  executive 
acts,  all  show  for  more  than  half  a  century,  that  such  was  the  mean 
ing  and  intent  of  the  Constitution. 

The  words  used  in  the  Constitution,  which  I  have  read  to  you, 
have  been  criticised  with  a  display  of  much  philological  learning. 
Words  in  use  in  the  every-day  talk  and  transactions  of  life  are  often 
used  carelessly,  and  by  different  persons  in  very  different  senses; 
words  that  have  application  to  peculiar  sciences  or  arts  have,  when 
applied  to  such  science  or  art,  a  well-defined  and  fixed  meaning. 
This  is  true  of  all  words,  in  any  language,  which  have  reference  to 
the  science  of  law.  Now  the  words  "rules  and  regulations,"  used 
in  the  Constitution,  have  a  fixed  and  well  understood  meaning.  We 
should  bear  in  mind  that  the  men  who  framed  and  wrote  the  Consti 
tution  were  not  only  wise  and  good  men,  having  large  acquaintance 
with  the  great  principles  of  civil  polity,  but  they  were,  many  of 
them,  learned  men  and  very  learned  lawyers.  When  they  made  use 
of  terms  which  have  been  well  defined  in  books  which  treat  of  law, 
they  knew,  and  intended,  that  these  words  or  phrases  should  carry 
with  them  the  same  meaning  which  had  been  assigned  them  in  the 
books  from  whence  they  derived  them.  I  dare  say,  most  of  our 
advocates  for  popular  sovereignty  will  allow  that  Gen.  Hamilton,  one 
of  the  most  influential  members  of  the  Convention,  had  read  and 
studied  " Blackstone's  Commentaries."  Blackstone  defines  law  to  be 
a  "rule"  of  action  prescribed  by  the  Supreme  Power  commending 
what  is  right,  etc.  When  the_Constitution  ordained  that  Congress 
should  have  power  to  make  all  needful  "rules"  concerning  the  Ter 
ritory — and  it  simply  provided  that  Congress  should  have  power  to 
make  all  needful  "laws"  concerning  the  Territory — so  the  language 
imports,  and  so  more  than  fifty  years  of  practice  prove,  did  "the 
Fathers"  understand  the  words  they  had  used. 

We  must  never  lose  sight  of  this  historical  argument.      On  this 


A    CAMPAIGN    SPEECH.  371 

subject  it  is  worth  all  the  philology  of  all  the  schools.  There  is  a 
history  pertaining  to  this  question,  as  there  is  belonging  to  the  Chris 
tian  Church  and  to  most  of  the  great  points  of  theology  and  divin 
ity,  arising  out  of  the  Bible,  which  is  the  constitution  for  that 
Church.  Now,  what  do  all  preachers  of  the  Christian  religion  do, 
when  a  dispute  arises  touching  the  meaning  of  a  text.  If  they  can 
be  satisfied  by  any  explanation  given  by  its  author,  either  by  words 
or  acts,  then  the  question  is  settled  at  once.  By  the  plainest  princi 
ple  of  common  sense,  if  the  author  of  any  writing  whatever, 
declares  the  meaning  of  his  own  words,  that  is  to  be  taken  as  the 
true  meaning  and  intent  of  such  author.  If  a  question  arises  about 
the  proper  interpretation  of  a  passage  in  the  writings  of  Paul,  Mat 
thew  or  John ;  if  it  can  be  shown  that  either  of  them  declared  what 
such  text  did  mean,  or,  by  his  constant  practice  and  conduct,  showed 
that  the  writer  did  understand  it  to  mean  this  or  that,  then  I  pre 
sume,  the  most  hypercritical  disputant  would  be  obliged  to  agree  to 
such,  as  being  the  proper  sense  of  the  passage  in  dispute. 

Now,  the  question  I  ask,  in  this,  as  in  all  other  cases  where  the 
true  intent  and  meaning  of  the  Constitution  is  in  question,  is,  what 
did  "the  Fathers"  intend?  Let  their  acts  answer.  I  presume  no 
one  of  the  modern  school  of  patriots  will  assert  that  the  Fathers 
were  rogues,  and  went  straightway,  after  they  made  a  Constitution, 
to  break  it.  I  could  here  tire  your  patience,  exemplary  as  it  is,  by 
a  long  recital  of  their  acts,  showing  that  they  understood  the  Consti 
tution  to  give  Congress  full,  and  complete,  and  exclusive  power,  to 
legislate,  in  all  cases,  and  on  all  subjects,  for  the  Territories.  Let  a 
very  few  historical  references  on  this  point  suffice,  for  the  present. 

The  Territory  of  Indiana,  between  the  years  1803  and  1810, 
petitioned  Congress,  I  think  as  often  as  three  times,  to  enact  a  law 
which  would  authorize  that  Territory  to  hold  slaves.  Sometimes 
they  asked  it  for  a  limited  time,  sometimes  to  have  it  in  a  modified 
form.  Now  what  did  Congress  do  with  these  petitions?  Did  they 
refuse  to  refer  them  to  a  committee,  on  the  ground  that  Congress 
had  no  power  to  make  any  law  (as  now  contended)  for  Territories? 
No  such  thing.  They  referred  all  these  petitions  to  committees, 
from  time  to  time,  as  they  were  presented.  What  did  the  commit 
tees  do  in  the  premises?  Did  they  report,  that  Congress  had  no 
power  over  the  subject,  and  ask  to  be  dismissed  and  discharged  from 
its  further  consideration  ?  Not  at  all.  On  the  contrary,  they  exam 
ined  the  petitions,  they  deliberated,  they  reflected ;  they  considered 


372  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

the  territory  and  its  people  as  their  territory,  and  their  proper  con 
stituents.  They  acted  as  guardians  of  Indiana  Territory,  as  having 
been  so  constituted  by  the  Constitution,  which  had  imposed  this 
duty  upon  Congress,  from  which  duty  they  could  not  release  them 
selves.  In  one  instance,  I  believe,  one  committee  reported  favora 
bly  to  the  prayer  for  Slavery,  but  that  report  was  never  sanctioned 
by  the  vote  of  Congress,  nor  was  it  rejected.  It  lay  on  the  table, 
and  was  not  acted  upon  by  Congress  at  all.  In  another  instance,  the 
justly  celebrated  John  Randolph,  of  Roanoke,  was  chairman  of  the 
committee  to  whom  one  of  these  petitions  was  referred.  He  was 
then  a  Jeffersonian  Republican.  He  was  not  one  to  assume  power 
not  granted  by  the  Constitution.  Nor  was  he  likely  to  be  ignorant 
of  any  of  those  arguments,  now-a-days  quite  common,  in  favor  of 
the  advantages  of  slave  labor.  He  was  a  Virginian,  a  slaveholder, 
and  beyond  any  cavil  or  doubt,  he  was  "of  the  first  families."  He, 
I  suppose,  had  not  learned  yet  what  his  successors  in  Virginia,  per 
haps  of  the  first,  perhaps  of  the  second  families,  have  discovered, 
that  is,  that  by  virtue  of  the  Constitution,  Slavery  was  in  Indiana  all 
the  time.  Neither  did  the  stupid  people  of  Indiana,  who  begged 
Congress  for  Slavery,  know  this  great  secret.  Had  some  modern 
lawyer  but  been  "then  and  there"  to  pronounce  "the  magic  word," 
"the  response  of  the  oracle"  as  given  now,  "over  all  the  Territories 
the  Constitution  carries  and  sanctifies  Slavery,  '  suo  proprio  vigore ' ' 
— had  Randolph  and  Caesar  A.  Rodney  "but  known  this  much," 
what  labor,  what  painful  thought  and  anxious  care  would  have  been 
spared  to  them!  Alas  for  "the  Fathers,"  they  did  not  know  what 
their  own  Constitution  meant — they  did  not  understand  the  work  of 
their  own  hands ;  they  did  not,  it  seems,  comprehend  the  import  of 
their  own  thoughts,  and,  more  to  be  deplored  than  even  this,  the 
"old  fogies"  of  Indiana  had  not  heard  of  "popular  sovereignty," 
or  if  they,  by  any  lucky  chance,  had  heard  these  pregnant  and  magic 
words,  they  surely  did  not  apprehend  their  meaning.  But  let  us  be 
grave,  for  the  subject  certainly  is  one  of  the  gravest  importance. 
You  see,  my  fellow-citizens,  that,  in  the  early*  infancy  of  our  Consti 
tutional  history,  all  men,  all  Congresses,  clearly  asserted  the  right  of 
Congress  to  prohibit  Slavery  in  Territories.  Randolph  reported 
against  the  prayer  for  Slavery,  and  said,  in  his  reports,  in  substance, 
that  the  Territory  would  find  ample  compensation  for  the  temporary 
want  of  labor,  in  more  rapid  emigration,  and  in  being  finally  free 
from  the  evil  influences  of  Slavery;  and  so  the  committee  and  Con- 


A    CAMPAIGN    SPEECH.  373 

gress^m  this  .way,  asserted  their  power  to  make  laws  for  Indiana  Ter 
ritory,  and  refused  to  permit  Slavery  there.  Now  we  have  found 
out  what  the  Esthers  did  under  the  Constitution  which  the  Fathers 
made,  and  so  we  have  reached  the  main  fact,  that  is,  they  said,  by 
their  acts,  "When  we  made  the  Constitution,  we  intended  to  give, 
and  did  give,  Congress  power  to  enact  laws  for  Territories."  But  ten 
years  pass  away,  and  the  year  1820  comes,  freighted  with  its  cares, 
its  wise  men  and  their  deeds — very  weak  men,  these  of  1820,  accord 
ing  to  our  modern  standard ;  very  foolish  deeds  theirs,  according  to 
the  judgment  of  unshaven,  unbearded  boys  of  1859.  But  what  was 
the  year  of  grace  1820?  We  old  gentlemen  who  were  of  that  day, 
and  by  special  providence  have  been  permitted  to  see  the  great  light 
of  this,  can  recall  many  of  the  events,  aspects  and  feelings  of  1820, 
with  pleasure  to  ourselves,  and  not,  we  hope,  without  profit,  as  fur 
nishing  a  small  contingent  of  that  no\v  much  despised  article,  exper 
ience,  once  deemed  the  true,  and  unfailing  school  of  wisdom. 

Our  Republic,  from  its  first  emergence  into  the  dignity  of  inde 
pendent  nationality,  was  never  more  truly  national,  or,  if  you  please 
American,  than  in  this  year  1820.  We  had  then  but  recently  come 
out  of  the  war  of  1812,  with  Great  Britain.  At  the  close  of  that 
war,  "political  parties"  were  all,  all  dead — one  only  remained,  and 
that  was  an  United  American  party.  We  were  united  in  heart,  in 
feeling,  in  principle,  and  in  policy.  Mr.  Monroe  -was  President  at 
this  time.  He  was  singularly  free  from  party  asperity  in  feeling, 
and  not-at-all  troubled  with  hobbies  or  crotchets.  Mr.  Madison's 
administration,  which  preceded,  had  been  characterized  by  a  happy 
admixture  of  the  best  of  the  principles  and  policy  of  both  of  the 
Federal  and  Republican  parties,  and  Mr.  Monroe  walked  in  his  foot 
steps.  The  cabinet  of  Mr.  Monroe  was  composed  of  men,  each  of 
whom  might  be  truly  said  to  be  "a  man."  John  Quincy  Adams 
was  Secretary  of  State;  William  H.  Crawford,  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury ;  John  C.  Calhoun,  Secretary  of  War ;  Samuel  L.  Southard, 
Secretary  of  the  Navy;  William  Wirt,  Attorney-General.  John 
McLean  was  Postmaster-General,  but  this  officer  was  not  then  a 
member  of  the  cabinet.  Each  one  and  all  of  these  eminent  men 
may  be  said  to  have  been  great  and  good  men.  Their  history  justi 
fies  me  in  this  opinion.  While  these  men  composed  the  Executive 
Department  of  the  Government,  Congress  admitted  Missouri  into 
the  Union.  The  Northern  boundary  of  Missouri  was  the  line  of 
latitude  36°  30' ;  north  of  this  line  there  were  no  white  inhabitants ; 


374  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

all  north  of  it  was  territory,  the  same  now  known  as  Kansas  and 
Nebraska.  Missouri  was  admitted  with  Slavery,  for  good  reasons, 
which  I  will  show  you  presently.  But  at  the  same  time  (1821)  the 
then  Congress  enacted  a  law  which  declared,  that  all  the  territory 
comprehended  in  the  Louisiana  purchase  lying  north  of  latitude  36° 
30'  should  be  forever  free  territory.  By  this  law  Slavery  was  forever 
forbidden  in  all  the  territory  now  organized  as  Kansas  and  Nebraska 
Territories.  The  question  was  then  settled  by  Congress  again,  as  we 
now  contend  it  should  have  been,  and  is  still,  "that  Congress  had 
the  power  to  prohibit  Slavery  in  Territories. "  So  far,  we  find  the 
legislative  department  of  the  Government  agreeing,  by  an  unbroken 
series  of  decisions,  that  this  power  did  exist,  and,  what  we  should 
never  forget,  "that  it  was  also  expedient,  and  for  the  public  good, 
to  prohibit  Slavery  in  the  Territories,  wherever  it  did  not  exist 
before  such  prohibition." 

Now  for  the  executive  department.  We  have  seen  that  Mr. 
Monroe  was  President  at  this  time,  and  we  have  already  heard  who  and 
what  sort  of  men  composed  his  cabinet.  We  now  know  that  this 
very  question  was  submitted  for  decision  to  that  cabinet,  and  that 
every  member  of  it,  including  Mr.  Monroe,  agreed  that  Congress 
had  power,  under  and  by  virtue  of  the  Constitution,  to  enact  that 
law — that  is,  they  decided  that  Congress  had  the  power  to  prohibit 
Slavery  in  Territories,  and  Mr.  Monroe  accordingly  approved  and 
signed  that  bill.  Now,  I  ask,  where,  then,  was  the  Constitution, 
with  Slavery  under  its  arm  in  all  Territories,  as  they  nowTay,  bear 
ing  its  blessed  freight  abroad,  "  sno  proprio  vigore  ? "  Where  was 
"popular  sovereignty"  then?  Where  was  the  watchful  eye  of  Mon 
roe,  the  appointed  keeper  of  the  Constitution  ?  Where  was  the  pro 
found  learning  of  Adams?  Where  the  calm  wisdom  and  rigid  conr 
struction  of  Crawford  ?  Where  slept  the  keen  sagacity  and  analytic 
powers  of  Calhoun?  Where  the  law  learning  and  deliberative  mind 
of  Southard  ?  And  above  all,  what  fatal  opiate  had  drugged  the  all- 
accomplished  mind  of  Wirt  into  lethean  forgetfulness  ?  My  country 
men,  my  friends,  can  you  believe  that  President  Pierce  and  his  cabi 
net,  and  a  few  such  gentlemen  as  we  all  know,  in  Congress,  in  the 
year  of  grace  1854,  knew  more  of  the  true  meaning  of  the  blessed 
Constitution  of  this  country  than  the  men  of  1803,  of  1804,  of 
1810,  or  those  whom  I  have  named,  in  1820  and  in  1821  ?  It  is  not 
necessary  that  I  should  draw  the  parallel,  or  compare,  or  contrast 
the  intellect  or  the  patriotism  of  these  two  classes  of  men.  The 


A    CAMPAIGN    SPEECH.  375 

men  of  1821  enacted  the  prohibition  of  Slavery  in  the  territory 
north  of  36°  30'.  The  men  of  1854  repealed  that  law.  Compare 
the  two;  let  every  man  be  his  own  Plutarch,  I  cannot  now  speak 
their  lives. 

Let  us  now  pass  over  the  time  between  1821  and  1848.  In 
the  latter  year  Oregon  Territory  was  organized.  Pause  here  a 
moment  and  consider  how  this  became  necessary.  The  anxious, 
busy,  sleepless,  hardy  Yankee  had  been  whaling  in  the  Pacific.  He 
had  read  of  Grey  and  Kendricks'  wanderings  in  that  sea,  of  their 
sailing  up  the  Columbia  river.  He  had,  perhaps,  anchored  at  the 
mouth  of  that  river  with  his  "home  returning  freight"  of  oil.  He 
had,  it  may  be,  mixed  a  can  of  switchel  there  and  looked  out  upon 
the  land.  He  comes  home,  and  forthwith  the  logger  in  Maine  pre 
pares  to  migrate.  The  man  in  Connecticut  and  in  Massachusetts 
quits  his  cotton-mills,  his  cutleries,  his  comb-factories,  and  lo !  the 
next  tidings  you  hear  of  Jonathan,  he  is  down  on  the  Pacific,  with 
"shop  up  and  shingle  out"  ready  for  business.  From  that  moment 
no  whale  or  salmon  shall  have  a  "Christian  burial"  west  of  the 
Stony  Mountains.  Minks,  seals,  otters  and  all  fur-bearing  creatures, 
ye  are  hats  and  caps  and  no  "living  thing,"  from  thenceforth  forever- 
more.  It  is  clear  that  such  a  people  should  be  "organized,"  and  so 
it  was  done  in  the  year  1848.  In  that  bill,  Slavery  in  Oregon  Terri 
tory  was  prohibited,  and  Mr.  Polk,  then  President,  "approved"  and 
signed  it.  In  the  intermediate  time  between  1821  and  1848,  very 
many  acts  of  Congress,  enacting,  or  recognizing  the  same  principle 
(the  power  of  Congress  to  make  laws  for  Territories)  were  passed, 
signed  and  approved.  But  still  further,  in  all  the  organic  laws  made 
for  all  territories,  I  think  ( perhaps  there  may  be  an  exception  or 
two )  where  Congress  authorize  a  territorial  legislature  to  enact  laws, 
they  go  on  to  provide  in  substance  that  all  laws  enacted  by  such  leg 
islatures  shall  be  reported  to  Congress,  and  if  Congress  shall  disap 
prove  them,  they  shall  be  null  and  void.  This  you  will  find  in  the 
acts  of  1850,  organizing  Utah  and  New  Mexico.  The  same  provis 
ion  is  in  the  organic  law  of  Washington  Territory,  passed  in  1852. 
Does  not  that  provision  assert  the  omnipotent  legislative  power  of  """ *~ 
Congress  over  territories,  in  total  forgetfulness  of  popular  sover 
eignty,  or  even  constitutions,  " suo pioprio  ligorc"  extending  Slavery? 
All  such  laws  have  been  enacted  by  Congresses  of  every  hue  of  pol 
itics,  various  as  these  shades  have  been,  and  approved  by  Presidents 
of  all  parties.  Thus  we  have  the  legislative  and  executive  depart- 


376  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

ments  from  the  adoption  of  the  United  States  Constitution  up  to 
1852,  a  period  of  over  sixty  years,  affirming  the  Republican  doctrine 
held  by  us,  my  Republican  brethren,  this  19th  day  of  July,  1859. 
Now  we  see  where  the  "Fathers'  "  foot-prints  are,  the  road  is  plain, 
well  paved  and  straight.  The  milestones  are  red  with  Revolutionary 
blood.  We  cannot  be  lost  in  it.  With  God's  blessing,  and  I  hum 
bly  trust  with  his  approval,  we  will  aver,  this  day,  that  neither  Presi 
dents  nor  President-makers,  nor  principalities  nor  powers,  shall  stop 
us  in  our  march  onward  in  that  road. 

My  fellow-citizens,  I  invoke  your  patience  while  we  look  for  a 
moment  into  the  judicial  department.  If  we  can  find  our  Repub 
lican  principles  approved  there,  then  authority,  example,  precedent, 
can  go  no  further. 

In  the  year  1828  the  case  of  "The  American  Insurance  Com 
pany  and  others  against  David  Carter"  came  before  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States — John  Marshall  being  then  Chief  Justice. 
This  case  will  be  found  reported  in  1st  Peters'  Reports,  page  511. 
This  question  of  the  power  of  Congress  over  Territories  is  spoken  of 
by  Justice  Marshall,  in  that  case,  in  these  terms.  I  will  read  his 
words — for  the  words  of  such  a  man  should  never  be  repeated  but 
with  care  and  reverence.  Speaking  of  the  treaty  by  which  we 
acquired  Florida  from  Spain,  he  says:  "The  treaty  is  the  law  of 
the  land,  and  admits  the  inhabitants  of  Florida  to  the  enjoyment  of 
the  privileges,  rights  and  immunities  of  citizens  of  the  United  States. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  inquire  whether  this  is  not  their  condition  inde 
pendent  of  stipulation.  They  do  not,  .however,  participate  in  politi 
cal  power ;  they  do  not  share  in  the  Government  till  Florida  shall 
become  a  State."  Now  mark  what  follows:  " In _the.. meantime, 
Florida  continues  to  be  a  territory  of  the  United  States,  governed  by 
virtue  of  that  clause  in  the  Constitution  which  empowers  Congress 
to  make  all  needful  rules  and  regulations  respecting  the  territory  and 
other  property  belonging  to  the  United  States.  Perhaps  the  power 
of  governing  the  territories  belonging  to  the  United  States,  which 
has  not  by  becoming  a  State  acquired  the  means  of  self-government, 
may  result  necessarily  from  the  facts  that  it  is  not  within  the  jurisdic 
tion  of  any  particular  State,  and  is  within  the  power  and  jurisdiction 
of  the  United  States.  The  right  to  govern  may  be  the  inevitable 
consequence  of  the  right  to  acquire  territory.  Whatever  may  be  the 
source  whence  the  power  is  derived,  the  possession  of  it  is  unques 
tioned."  Now,  whose  opinions  shall  weigh  against  those  of  John 


A    CAMPAIGN    SPEECH.  377 

Marshall,  and  I  believe  every  judge  on  the  bench  then  agreed  with 
him?  If  it  has  pleased  God  ever  to  create  a  man  with  an  intellect 
incapable  of  deceiving  itself  or  being  deceived  by  others,  if  Divine 
Wisdom  ever  endowed  a  human  soul  with  the  power  of  finding  his 
way  to  truth  safely  and  certainly,  through  all  the  mists  of  prejudice 
and  all  the  artfully-contrived  mazes  of  sophistry,  such  a  mind  was 
given  to  Chief  Justice  Marshall.  You  have  heard  his  opinions;  they 
are  the  doctrines  on  this  subject  of  our  Republican  party  this  day. 
The  executive,  legislative  and  judicial  wisdom,  all  accordant  for  sixty 
years,  assure  us  of  our  faith,  and  call  on  us  to  persevere  in  our  prac 
tice.  But  what  shall  I  say  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision?  Nothing. 
The  question  I  am  considering  was  not  before  the  Court  in  that  case, 
and  therefore  could  not  have  been  decided.  "  Obiter  dicta "  there 
may  be, — discussions  relating  to  the  subject,  but  no  judicial,  no 
authoritative  decision  on  this  question  was  possible  in  that  case. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  Act  organizing  Utah  and  New  Mexico, 
passed  in  1850.  You  all  remember  the  long  and  anxious  debate 
which  preceded  the  passage  of  that  law ;  the  fearful  forebodings  of 
some,  the  threats  of  dissolution  of  the  Union  by  others — it  was 
indeed  a  sad  spectacle,  a  dark  day.  It  came  upon  us  by  our  con 
quest  of  Mexico.  The  treaty  which  terminated  the  Mexican  war, 
gave  us  New  Mexico  and  California.  The  treaty,  I  say,  gave  us 
these  provinces,  but  I  should  have  said,  it  gave  them  up  after  we, 
by  strong  hand,  had  wrenched  them  from  weak  Mexico.  The  treaty 
was  the  deed  of  conveyance,  the  right,  if  right  it  may  be  called,  was 
founded  in  the  bloody  victories  of  Buena  Vista,  Cerro  Gordo, 
Chepultepec  and  Molino  del  Rey.  The  evidences  of  our  title,  are 
the  graves  of  many  thousands  of  our  noble  and  heroic  children. 
There  was  one  bearing  a  humble  part  in  your  national  councils  then, 
who  desired  to  put  an  end  to  that  Mexican  war  before  you  had 
obtained  these  provinces.  I  shall  not  name  that  man.  He  ventured 
to  prophesy  that  it  would  come  to  no  good  end ;  that  when  you  had 
obtained  this  territory,  whether  by  conquest  or  purchase,  this  very 
question  of  the  extension  of  Slavery  into  it  would  arise ;  that  it 
would  be  a  firebrand  in  our  magazine ;  it  would  excite  a  spirit  of  dis 
cord,  which,  in  its  wild  and  ungovernable  fury,  might  rend  the  fam 
ily  ties  of  the  Union,  and  scatter  us  in  disordered  fragments  away, 
far  and  forever  away,  from  the  good  old  family  home  builded  for  us 
by  our  fathers,  in  which  we  had  so  long  and  so  happily  dwelt.  For 
this  that  man  was  burned  in  effigy  often,  but  yet  not  burned  up. 


378  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

This  prediction  was  not  very  far  from  its  fulfillment  in  1850,  if  all 
the  sinister  aspects  of  that  day  may  be  trusted  as  giving  ' '  signs  of 
the  times."  It  was,  perhaps,  proper  that  we  should  be  visited  with 
troubles  in  managing  such  conquests.  Retribution  is  with  the  God 
of  the  nations.  May  we  not  forget  where  that  power  is  lodged  by  a 
certain  Constitution  enacted  before  time  began,  to  be  in  full  force 
throughout  all  eternity  to  come. 

I  ask  you,  my  fellow-citizens,  is  there  ever  to  be  an  end  of  this 
question?  What  does  the  Judge  tell  you  when  he  decides  a  case? 
He  tells  you,  in  the  language  of  the  law,  that  "it  is  expedient  for 
the  country  that  there  should  be  an  end  to  the  question."  Your  law 
titles  depend  upon  that  Would  you  not  consider  it  strange,  if, 
twenty  years  after,  another  court  should  come  and  decide  the  con 
trary  ?  A  sensible  court  would  say,  this  has  been  decided  twenty 
years  ago,  argued  legally,  and  "it  is  expedient  for  the  country  that 
there  should  be  an  end  to  the  question."  If  you  want  to  have  a 
written  constitution  that  you  can  rely  on  at  all,  you  must  have  an 
interpretation  put  upon  the  words,  and  let  it  read  that  way  until  the 
people  choose  to  change  it  by  altering  the  words,  otherwise  a  written 
constitution  will  be  made  to  read  this  thing  one  year,  and  another 
thing  another  year. 

Now,  I  wish  to  read,  for  the  special  benefit  of  weak  brethren,  a 
few  words  from  a  couple  of  the  apostles  of  modern  Democracy.  On 
the  4th  day  of  March,  1850,  John  C.  Calhoun  (the  Compromise  Bill 
of  Mr.  Clay  being  then  under  discussion  in  the  Senate)  spoke  as  fol 
lows:  "In  claiming  the  right  for  the  inhabitants,  instead  of  Con 
gress,  to  legislate  for  the  territories  in  the  executive  proviso,  it 
assumes  that  the  sovereignty  over  the  Territories  is  vested  in  the  for 
mer,  or  to  express  it  in  the  language  used  in  a  resolution  offered  by 
one  of  the  Senators  from  Texas  ( Gen.  Houston ),  they  have  the  same 
inherent  right  of  self-government  as  the  people  of  the  States.  This 
assumption  is  utterly  unfounded,  unconstitutional  and  contrary  to 
the  entire  practice  of  the  Government  from  its  commencement  to  the 
present  time."  Mr.  Calhoun  then  goes  on  with  his  comments  upon 
the  subject,  and  says,  "Nor  is  it  less  clear  that  the  power  of  legislat 
ing  over  the  acquired  territory  is  vested  in  Congress,  and  not,  as  is 
assumed,  in  the  inhabitants  of  the  Territories."  Thus  far  Mr.  Cal 
houn  in  1850. 

On  the  2nd  day  of  June,  1850,  this  same  subject  being  still 
under  discussion,  Mr.  Douglas  thus  delivers  himself  of  his  opinions. 


A    CAMPAIGN    SPEECH.  379 

Let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  Mr.  D.  must  have  reflected  much  and 
long  on  this  very  subject,  as  he  had  long  served  as  Chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Territories.  I  read  from  his  reported  speech,  doubt 
less  carefully  revised  by  himself:  "But,  sir,  I  do  not  hold  the  doc 
trine,  that  to  exclude  any  species  of  property  by  law,  from  any  ter 
ritory,  is  a  violation  of  any  right  to  property.  Do  you  not  exclude 
banks  from  most  of  the  Territories?  Do  you  not  exclude  whisky 
from  being  introduced  into  large  portions  of  the  territory  of  the 
United  States?  Do  you  not  exclude  gambling-tables,  which  are 
properly  recognized  as  such,  in  the  States  where  they  are  tolerated? 
And,  has  any  one  contended  that  the  exclusion  of  ardent  spirits  was 
a  violation  of  any  Constitutional  privilege  or  right  ?  and  yet  it  is  the 
case  in  a  large  portion  of  the  territory  of  the  United  States;  but 
there  is  no  outcry  against  that,  because  it  is  the  prohibition  of  a  spe 
cific  kind  of  property,  and  not  a  prohibition  against  any  section  of 
the  Union.  Why,  sir,  our  laws  now  prevent  a  tavern-keeper  from 
going  into  some  of  the  Territories  of  the  United  States,  and  taking  a 
bar  with  him,  and  using  and  selling  spirits  there.  The  law  also  pro 
hibits  certain  other  descriptions  of  business  from  being  carried  on  in 
the  Territories.  I  am  not,  therefore,  prepared  to  say  that,  under  the 
Constitution  we  have  not  the  power  to  pass  laws  excluding  negro 
slaves  from  Territories.  It  involves  the  same  principle." — (Vol.  21 
Cong.  Globe,  p.  1,115.) 

Now  what  are  we  to  conclude  from  this  array  of  the  history  of 
this  question,  and  the  uniform  opinions  of  the  greatest,  the  wisest, 
and  all  men  down  to  the  least?  Beginning  from  the  first  establish 
ment  of  our  present  constitutional  government,  and  ending  in  1850, 
or  perhaps  more  properly  in  1852,  when  Washington  Territory  was 
organized,  reserving  ultimate  legislative  power  over  that  territory  in 
Congress  ?  I  ask  my  brother  Democrats,  whether  of  the  Buchanan 
or  Douglas  church,  shall  we  not  adhere  to  the  opinions  of  the 
"Fathers?"  Have  we  the  enormous  egotism  to  suppose  that  we,  we 
of  this  latter  day,  have  better  knowledge  of  the  meaning  of  our 
political  gospels  than  the  fathers  who  wrote  them?  If  you  think 
and  believe  this  folly,  why  then  you  are  past  praying  for,  and  I  am 
done  with  you. 

We  have  now  settled  our  constitutional  rights  as  to  the  extent 
and  mode  in  which  the  Republicans  propose  to  prevent  the  further 
extension  of  Slavery.  I  wish  here  to  say,  that  I  think  this  prohibi 
tory  power  should  be  exerted  as  to  all  territory  now  ours,  and  all 


380  SPEECHES    OP   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

that  shall  become  ours  wherever  Slavery  is  not  established  when  such 
territory  is  acquired,  with  this  qualification,  that  it  must  be  such  cli 
mate  as  a  white  man,  and  the  white  race  generally,  can  live  and  work 
in.  I  think  it  is  a  question  not  yet  settled  whether  the  white  race, 
our  white  race,  can  work  and  live  in  health,  in  very  hot  latitudes. 

Let  us  look  fora  moment  into  our  duties  under  the  Constitution 
toward  the  slaveholding  States.  Much  excitement  has  existed  in 
Ohio  and  elsewhere  about  the  "  Fugitive  Slave  Bill" — so  it  is  famil 
iarly  called.  This  subject  has  not  yet  been  fairly  and  dispassionately 
presented  to  the  people.  It  may  have  been  so  presented  to  courts 
and  in  courts,  but  not,  as  I  believe,  in  our  popular  meetings.  The 
act  of  1850  has  many  objectionable  provisions  which  are  easily  mis 
understood,  and  which  are  altogether  useless  and  of  no  avail  in  the 
practical  operation  of  the  law.  I  should  not  have  voted  for  that  law 
had  I  been  in  the  Senate  when  it  passed.  I  prefer  the  old  law  of 
1793;  it  is  free  from  most  of  the  follies  of  the  present  law,  and  it  is 
just  as  easy  to  reclaim  a  fugitive  under  the  first  as  under  the  law  of 
1850.  I  understand  that  some  in  Ohio,  and  it  may  be  some  on  the 
Kentucky  side,  have  supposed  that  any  man  from  Kentucky  who 
comes  here  in  pursuit  of  a  fugitive,  a  runaway  negro,  can  command 
a  citizen  of  Ohio  to  aid  him  in  catching  him.  This  is  said  to  be  the 
opinion  in  Kentucky.  I  should  like  to  know  if  this  be  so.  My 
friend,  Mr.  Moore,  now  on  the  rostrum,  recently,  I  am  happy  to 
inform  you,  elected  to  Congress  from  the  district  in  Kentucky  oppo 
site  to  us,  can  say  whether  this  be  so. 

Here  Mr.  MOORE  observed,  "That  is  so." 

Well,  that  may  be  your  construction,  but  you,  and  all  in  Ohio, 
who  have  ( as  I  believe ),  to  render  this  law  odious,  maintained  this 
construction,  are  all  mistaken.  The  law  requires  no  such  thing;  it 
could  not  compel  us  here  to  do  so,  were  a  thousand  laws  made  for 
that  purpose.  I  know  the  act  of  1850  requires  all  citizens  to  aid  the 
master  or  his  agent,  or  the  officer  having  process  to  arrest  a  fugitive, 
when  such  master,  his  agent,  or  the  officer  is  resisted  by  a  mob  or 
any  force  which  cannot  be  repelled  without  such  aid. 

Mr.  MOORE  here  remarked,  "  We  say  as  you  do,  if  we  are  resisted  then  you  must 
aid  us." 

Exactly  so,  such  is  the  law.  Now  this  is  precisely  what  is 
enjoined  by  the  laws  of  Ohio,  and  I  suppose  all  the  States,  when  the 
execution  of  the  laws  is  forcibly  resisted.  In  such  case,  we  do  not 


A    CAMPAIGN    SPEECH.  381 

aid  in  reclaiming  a  slave,  but  we  aid  in  suppressing  a  mob,  we  aid  in 
putting  down  forcible  resistance  to  law,  to  our  law,  for  all  laws  of 
the  United  States  are  the  laws  made  by  the  representatives  of  all  the 
people  of  the  United  States.  But  some  of  our  people,  some  who 
act  with  us,  very  few  I  think,  say  this  law  is  not  a  binding  law, 
because  it  is  contrary  to  the  Constitution,  and  above  all,  they  say  it 
is  opposed  to  the  "natural  inherent  rights  of  man."  Now,  I  have 
to  say  as  to  the  first  of  these  objections,  the  courts,  both  state  and 
federal,  have  decided  that  this  law  is  not  contrary  to  the  United 
States  Constitution,  and  that  Congress  had  power  to  enact  that  law. 
The  Supreme  Court  of  Ohio  has  very  recently,  on  solemn  argument, 
so  decided.  This  is  enough  for  me  and  all  law-abiding  men.  We 
must  obey  and  not  resist  that  law.  If  we  do  not  think  it  a  good 
law.  why  go  to  the  ballot-box,  elect  men  who  will  alter  or  repeal  it. 
The  cartridge-box  is  not  to  be  resorted  to  in  this  country  in  such 
matters ;  that  other  more  harmless  box,  the  ballot-box,  is  our  resort 
in  all  such  cases.  If  the  majority  is  against  us,  why  we  must  sub 
mit.  There  can  be  no  government  possible,  if  any  and  every  indi 
vidual  may  determine  for  himself  what  law  he  will  obey  and  what 
he  will  not  obey.  As  to  the  inherent  right  of  a  slave  to  run  away 
from  his  master,  why  this  inherent  right  ceases,  if  the  Constitution 
has  said  his  master  may  follow  him  and  reclaim  him.  I  think,  in 
such  a  case,  the  master's  constitutional  rights  will  be  likely  to  van 
quish  the  slave's  "inherent"  right.  We  car.  have  no  inherent  rights 
in  our  Government  which  conflict  with  rights  established  by  our 
organic  law,  else  in  the  case  put  by  me  now,  we  must  be  driven  to 
declare  the  United  States  Constitution  itself  to  be  unconstitutional. 
This  would  be  the  grossest  nonsense.  But  what  says  the  Constitu 
tion?  In  the  fourth  article  and  the  last  paragraph  in  section  two, 
you  can  read  these  words:  "No  person  held  to  service  or  labor  in 
one  State,  under  the  laws  thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall  in  con 
sequence  of  any  law  or  regulation  therein,  be  discharged  from  such 
service  or  labor,  but  shall  be  delivered  up,  on  claim  of  the  party  to 
whom  such  service  or  labor  may  be  due."  Now,  you  see,  my 
Republican  friends,  that  we  are  required  by  this  clause  of  that  sacred 
instrument  not  to  help  away  a  fugitive  or  resist  his  capture,  but  it 
requires  of  us  that  he  "shall  be  delivered  up  on  claim  of  the  party  to 
whom  his  service  or  labor  maybe  due."  This,  in  plain  words,  means 
that  a  slave  who  runs  away  from  Kentucky,  shall  be  by  us  deliv 
ered  to  his  master  when  he,  the  master  or  his  kgent,  comes  here  after 


382  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

him.  Now  you,  the  Republican  party,  claim  that  your  Congress 
may  prohibit  Slavery  in  Territories.  How  came  you  by  such  right? 
Only  by  virtue  of  this  very  United  States  Constitution  can  you  claim 
to  do  this.  Is  it  not  fair,  then,  that  the  right  of  your  Southern 
brother  to  reclaim  his  runaway  slave,  given  to  him  in  this  same  Con 
stitution,  should  be  conceded  to  him.  Will  you  take  so  much  of  the 
Constitution  as  you  like  to-day,  and  abrogate  what  you  don't  like  ? 
Yet  this  is  just  the  thing,  this  is  the  absurdity  which  some  few  peo 
ple,  well-meaning  men,  perhaps,  seem  to  require  of  us.  I  proclaim 
here  to-day  to  all  whom  it  may  concern,  that  such  is  not  the  doc 
trine  of  the  Republican  party  of  Ohio.  If  this  were  its  doctrine  it 
would  dwindle  into  a  contemptible  minority  in  one  day  after  it 
should  be  made  known. 

There  is  another  question  sometimes  mooted  in  and  out  of  Con 
gress,  dividing,  it  is  said,  the  North  and  the  South  :  Shall  any  more 
slave  States  be  admitted  into  the  Union  ?  Now  I  wish  to  answer  this 
question  for  myself.  If  you  will  conquer  or  purchase  any  state, 
province  or  territory,  wherein  Slavery  is  an  established  institution, 
and  agree,  as  you  did  in  the  Louisiana  treaty,  to  admit  such  province, 
island  or  Territory  into  the  Union,  with  such  rights  as  belong  to  the 
original  States,  then  I  say  you  must  admit  them  with  their  Slavery. 
Such  treaty  is  the  supreme  law  of  the  land.  It  is  so  declared  by  the 
Constitution.  To  that  supreme  law  you  must  submit,  in  the  case  I 
have  supposed.  Let  me  here  read  an  extract  from  a  speech  of  John 
Quincy  Adams  in  Congress,  on  the  admission  of  Arkansas  into  the 
Union,  in  1836: 

"  MR.  CHAIRMAN — I  cannot,  consistently  with  my  sense  of  my  obligations  as  a 
citizen  of  the  United  States,  and  bound  by  oath  to  support  their  Constitution,  I  cannot 
object  to  the  admission  of  Arkansas  into  the  Union  as  a  slave  State,  as  Louisiana,  and 
Mississippi,  and  Alabama,  and  Missouri  have  been  admitted  by  virtue  of  that  article  in 
the  treaty  for  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana,  which  secures  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  ceded 
territories  all  the  rights,  privileges  and  immunities  of  the  original  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  and  stipulates  for  their  admission,  conformably  to  that  principle,  into  the  Union. 
Louisiana  was  purchased  as  a  country  wherein  Slavery  was  the  established  law  of  the 
land.  As  Congress  have  not  power  in  time  of  peace  to  abolish  Slavery  in  the  original 
States  of  the  Union,  they  are  equally  destitute  of  the  power  in  those  parts  of  the  ter 
ritory  ceded  by  France  to  the  United  States,  by  the  name  of  Louisiana,  where  Slavery 
existed  at  the  time  of  the  acquisition.  Slavery  is  in  this  Union  the  subject  of  internal 
legislation  in  the  States,  and  in  peace  is  cognizable  by  Congress,  only  as  it  is  tacitly 
tolerated  and  protected  where  it  exists  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  as 
it  mingles  in  their  intercourse  with  other  nations.  Arkansas  therefore  comes,  and  has 
the  right  to  come,  into  the  Union  with  her  slaves  and  with  her  slave  laws.  It  is  writ 
ten  in  the  bond,  and,  however  I  may  lament  that  it  ever  was  so  written,  I  must  faith 
fully  perform  its  obligations." 


A    CAMPAIGN    SPEECH.  383 

Mr.  Adams  was  not  the  man  to  favor  Slavery,  but  he  was  the 
man  to  follow,  with  fearless  intrepidity,  the  dictates  of  truth,  justice 
and  honor.  He  well  understood,  if  any  man  ever  did,  the  powers 
of  the  States  and  of  the  General  Government,  and  he  would  not 
flinch  from  the  great  paramount  duty  of  an  American  statesman  in 
yielding  to  each  that  which  belonged  to  each.  My  opinion  is,  and 
always  was,  what  he  has  so  happily  expressed  in  the  extract  which  I 
have  read.  Let  us  suppose  that  you  purchase  the  Island  of  Cuba, 
which,  by-the-way,  you  will  not  do  soon — Cuba  has  a  well  and  long- 
established  institution  called  Slavery — you  will  not,  probably,  (as 
you  did  not  in  the  case  of  California  and  New  Mexico  )  ask  the  con 
sent  of  the  people  of  Cuba  to  come  into  the  Union  or  under  your 
government  in  any  form.  What  is  the  great  and  universally  ac 
cepted  dogma  on  which  all  your  institutions  rest?  It  is  thus 
expressed,  "all  rightful  power  of  government  is  derived  from  the 
consent  of  the  people  to  be  governed."  When  you  buy  from  the 
king  or  queen  of  Spain  the  right  to  govern  the  Island  and  people  of 
Cuba,  will  you  provide  that  the  purchase  money  shall  not  be  paid 
until  the  consent  of  the  people  to  the  transfer  shall  be  given  by  a 
vote  of  all  the  white  male  inhabitants  of  the  Island?  If  you  will, 
then  you  will  never  get  Cuba,  unless  you  take  her  with  Slavery. 
The  people  will  not  consent  to  come  under  your  yoke  unless  you 
take  Slavery  as  an  established  law  also.  If  you  provide  for  their 
admission  into  the  Union  with  equal  rights  with  the  other  States, 
then  your  former  practice,  and  Mr.  Adams's  opinion,  and  mine, 
and  that  of  every  other  man  who  regards  the  sanctity  of  treaties, 
will  settle  the  question. 

My  friends,  I  must  conclude.  I  have  exhausted  my  strength, 
and  am  sure  I  have  overtaxed  your  patience.  One  word  of  advice 
at  parting.  If  you  wish  to  silence,  for  our  time  and  for  a  long  time, 
this  disturbing  and  dangerous  question  of  Slavery,  you  have  nothing 
to  do  but  resolve  that  you  will  acquire  no  more  territory  for  the 
next  twenty  years.  That  which  you  now  have  will  never  raise  the 
question ;  it  is  that  which  you  expect  to  get  which  gives  the  ques 
tion  all  its  real  importance.  You  already  have  about  one-tenth  part  of 
the  globe,  within  your  territorial  limits.  Be  content  with  that — 
cultivate  well  what  you  have ;  raise  up  men,  good  men,  honest  men ; 
improve  the  animal  man,  and  be  not  too  careful  to  extend  your 
power.  This  done,  and  the  South  and  the  North,  and  the  East  and 
the  West  will  rush  into  each  other's  arms,  and  cling  closer  to  each 


384  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

other  on  account  of  the  former  partial  estrangement.  Then  we  shall 
be  indeed  citizens,  fellow-citizens  of  one  country,  and  that  country 
free,  powerful  and  happy — all,  all  uniting  in  thankfulness  to  God  for 
the  happy  times  in  which  we  live,  the  great  country  we  live  in,  and 
the  glorious  institutions  we  live  under.  God.  bless  you  all,  my 
friends.  I  have  given  you  much  good  advice  to-day,  much  of  which 
I  fear  some  will  not  follow.  I  charge  you  nothing  for  it,  but  believe 
me  and  try  it.  I  am  sure  if  you  will,  it  shall  profit  you  quite  as 
much  as  counsel  for  which  I  dare  say  some  of  you  have  often  paid 
what  you  may  have  thought  was  a  very  large  fee. 


ON  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION. 


A   SPEECH   IN  THE  SPEAKERSHIP  CONTEST  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF   REP 
RESENTATIVES,  JANUARY  23  AND  24,  1860. 


THE  Thirty-Sixth  Congress,  to  which  Mr.  CORWIN  had  been  elected  a  Represent 
ative,  met  on  Monday,  December  5th,  1859.  There  was  an  unprecedented  delay  in 
the  organization  of  the  House.  The  Republican  members  supported  Hon.  JOHN  SHER 
MAN,  of  Ohio,  for  Speaker,  but  no  party  had  a  clear  majority.  The  Slavery  question 
was  introduced  after  the  first  ballot  for  Speaker  by  Hon.  JOHN  B.  CLARK,  of  Missouri, 
who  offered  a  resolution  condemning  a  book  entitled,  "  The  Impending  Crisis  of  the 
South — How  to  Meet  It,"  by  Hinton  R.  Helper,  and  declaring  that  no  member  who 
had  recommended  it  was  fit  to  be  Speaker.  Mr.  SHERMAN  and  a  large  majority  of  the 
Republican  members  of  the  last  Congress  had  signed  a  circular  commending  the  work 
to  general  attention.  Thus  the  House  plunged  into  a  discussion  of  Slavery  and  Slavery 
agitation,  John  Brown  and  Helper's  Impending  Crisis,  with  occasional  ballots  for 
Speaker,  Mr.  SHERMAN'S  vote  rising  to  112,  when  116  were  necessary  to  a  choice.  After 
eight  weeks  had  been  thus  spent  Mr.  SHERMAN  withdrew  and  ex-Governor  WILLIAM 
PENNINGTON,  of  New  Jersey,  was  elected.  Before  the  close  of  this  memorable  contest, 
on  Monday,  January  23rd,  1860,  Mr.  CORWIN  rose  and  spoke  as  follows: 

MR.  CLERK  :  I  rise  to  inquire  what  is  the  subject  under  discus 
sion  at  this  time?  [Laughter]. 

The  CLERK — The  question  before  the  House  is  the  point  of  order  raised 
by  the  gentleman  from  Iowa  [MR.  CURTIS]  on  Thursday  last. 

MR.  CORWIX — Then  the  speech  of  the  gentleman  from  Missis 
sippi  [MR.  BARKSDALE],  to  which  we  have  listened  with  a  good  deal 
of  interest,  has  been  made,  I  understand,  upon  the  point  of  order. 

The  gentleman  from  Mississippi  wants  to  get  rid  of  this  cum 
brous  business,  and  I  will  say  to  him  that  the  only  way  to  accom 
plish  it  is  by  voting ;  and  I  say  further  to  him,  that  if  he  should  be 
elected,  I  will  pledge  him  that  the  State  of  Ohio  will  not  dissolve  the 
Union  on  that  account.  Now,  this  is  a  very  serious  matter,  though, 
at  the  same  time,  it  so  happens  that  almost  every  good  or  grave  sub 
ject  discussed  by  men  will  have  something  ludicrous  about  it.  This 
farce  which  we  have  been  enacting  for  seven  weeks,  very  much  to 

our  amusement,    is,   as  we  hear  it  very  frequently  remarked,    and 
26  (385) 


386  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

sometimes  much  to  the  disturbance  of  some  gentlemen  here,  begin 
ning  to  be,  in  the  minds  of  the  people  of  this  country,  a  serious 
matter.  If  every  gentleman  here  who  has  a  duty  to  discharge,  and 
who  was  sent  here  to  do  the  business  of  this  great  Republic,  would 
put  this  matter  to  his  conscience  as  he  does  other  subjects  which 
involve  questions  of  conscientious  duty,  surely  we  would  begin  to 
think  seriously  what  we  have  to  do. 

I  know  that  there  are  some  very  plausible  arguments — and  to 
me  they  are  difficult  to  get  over — in  favor  of  electing  a  Speaker  of 
the  House  by  the  majority  of  votes  of  members.  I  was  reminded 
the  other  day  by  one  of  my  friends,  resident  in  this  city,  with  whom 
I  have  long  had  most  agreeable  and  friendly  intercourse — a  gentle 
man  in  good  standing  with  the  present  Administration,  and  therefore 
I  do  not  wish  to  give  his  name,  lest  it  might  bring  him  into  disre 
pute  [  laughter] — that  there  was  something  in  the  election  of  Speaker 
more  than  I  had  supposed ;  that  in  a  certain  event  he  might  become 
President  of  the  United  States.  I  confess  that  puzzled  me  a  little. 
It  may  be  so ;  but  I  do  not  think  it  important  that  we  should  incor 
porate  that  idea  into  our  purposes,  as  one  of  the  contingencies  that 
may  arise.  It  is  hardly  possible  that  any  two  gentlemen  who  are  or 
may  be  elected  President  and  Vice-President  will  be  amiable  enough 
to  die  for  the  benefit  of  the  Speaker  of  this  House.  I  do  not  know 
what  God  in  His  providence  may  have  in  store  for  us.  Such  a  con 
tingency  has  never  happened,  and  therefore  I  think  we  should  not 
give  it  a  marked  place  in  our  consideration  of  the  question  of  the 
Speakership  of  this  House.  Something  has  been  said  by  the  gentle 
man  from  Mississippi  touching  this  very  subject ;  and  I,  reserving  my 
rights  under  such  rules  of  order  as  we  may  hereafter  establish,  desire 
to  say  something  on  the  general  propositions  that  have  been  so  ably 
presented  to  the  House  by  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi. 

The  gentleman  read,  as  the  bitterest  drop  in  the  cup,  some  par 
agraphs  from  the  Helper  book,  advising  that  the  free  laboring  popu 
lation  of  the  South,  not  holding  slaves,  shall  abstain  from  communi 
cation  with  those  who  do  own  slaves.  Now,  I  wish  to  ask  gentle 
men  of  the  South  what  they  suppose  would  be  the  result  of  placing 
this  book  in  the  hands  of  the  non-slaveholding  people  of  the  South  ? 
The  question  would  simply  be  submitted  by  those  non-slaveholding 
men  of  the  South  to  the  whole  State,  whether  Slavery  should  be 
abolished  or  not ;  and  if  it  should  be  determined  to  abolish  Slavery, 
would  anybody  have  a  right  to  complain  of  a  State  for  abolishing 


ON   THE   SLAVERY   QUESTION.  387 

Slavery,  more  than  to  complain  of  her  for  adopting  it?  Gentlemen 
have  greatly  overrated  the  consequences  of  that  little  book.  I  know 
that  they  say,  or  have  said,  that  it  shows  the  disposition  of  the 
North  to  interfere  with  Slavery  in  the  South.  How  does  it  show 
that  disposition?  It  was  written,  as  everybody  knows,  by  a  man 
who  had  his  citizenship  or  habitation  in  North  Carolina  until  he  left 
there  to  go  to  the  city  of  New  York.  Who  is  to  blame,  then,  if  we 
may  trace  back  effect  to  cause?  You  say  that  Mr.  Seward  made  a 
speech  in  Rochester,  some  time  in  the  year  of  grace  1858,  and  that 
from  that  came  the  invasion  of  Virginia,  by  twenty-three  men, 
headed  by  John  Brown. 

Sir,  if  North  Carolina  had  not  brought  up  this  man  among  her 
own  slave  institutions,  we  never  should  have  had  the  Helper  book. 
No  Northern  man  has  written  such  a  book,  and  if  he  had  written 
such  a  book,  is  it  possible  that  any  institution  existing  in  a  Christian 
and  enlightened  community  like  the  South  can  be  overthrown  by  a 
pamphlet?  In  a  congregation  of  children  of  the  same  family,  I 
should  avoid  a  subject  which  might  disturb  our  relations.  I  would 
not  like  to  throw  into  the  face  of  my  brother  one  of  his  evil  habits ; 
nor  would  you,  my  friends. 

Mr.  Clerk,  history  will  show  that  Mr.  Seward,  if  he  be  the  great 
leader  of  the  Republican  party — and  I  have  almost  given  up  all  pre 
tensions  to  their  leadership  since  I  have  been  loudly  and  positively 
repudiated  by  one  side  of  the  House,  and  some  on  this  side  have 
said  pretty  much  the  same  thing — I  say  that  Mr.  Seward  has  never 
uttered  a  sentiment,  and  that  one  cannot  be  cited  in  all  the  extracts 
which  have  been  quoted  from  his  speeches  or  his  arguments,  more 
offensive  to  the  South  than  Thomas  Jefferson,  the  apostle  of  Democ 
racy,  did  utter.  I  know  that  my  friends  from  the  South  are  too  well 
acquainted  with  the  history  of  that  great  man,  not  to  know,  as  I 
know,  that  neither  Mr.  Seward,  nor  any  other  Republican — I  except 
the  Abolitionists,  for  they  are  not  Republicans,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
generally  hold  the  Republican  party  in  utter  scorn — I  say  that  in 
Helper's  book  nothing  is  to  be  found,  so  far  as  I  know,  more  offen 
sive  than  utterances  long  since  found  in  writings  and  speeches  of  the 
elder  men  of  the  South.  George  Washington  himself  always  said 
while  he  lived  that  he  should  wish,  if  it  were  possible,  to  see  Slavery 
abolished  in  the  United  States.  I  know  that  Mr.  Seward,  whose 
election  as  President  of  the  United  States,  it  is  said,  will  be  the  signal 
for  civil  war  in  this  great  Confederacy,  has  never  said  anything  more 


388  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

offensive  to  the  South  than  has  been  said  by  your  ambassador  whom 
you  have  lately  commissioned  to  France,  (Mr.  Faulkner,  of  Virginia,) 
taking  it  for  granted  that  the  extracts  which  I  have  seen  quoted  from 
his  speeches  are  true  extracts. 

The  eloquent  gentleman  from  Mississippi  [MR.  BARKSDALE]  is 
very  much  afraid  of  the  establishment,  by  the  gentleman  from  Mas 
sachusetts  [MR.  BURLINGAME],  of  an  anti-Slavery  Bible.  Sir,  that 
Bible  is  a  book  without  which,  in  my  judgment,  no  society  can  very 
well  exist  and  hope  to  advance  in  morals  or  otherwise.  And  yet  I 
warn  gentlemen,  North  and  South,  that  it  is  a  book  which  it  will  not 
do  for  us  to  look  to  alone  to  guide  us  in  the  organization  of  political 
society  of  the  present  day.  We  find,  in  the  historical  parts  of  that 
book,  brief  sketches  of  the  laws,  usages  and  doings  of  the  people 
of  the  Old  World,  which,  if  not  read  and  pondered  more  carefully 
than  such  as  we  are  apt  to  do,  will  lead  to  great  errors  in  legislation 
in  this  age  and  country.  We  find  there  enacted  very  much  such 
scenes,  thousands  and  thousands  of  years  ago,  as  we  have  been  en 
deavoring  to  enact  in  this  little  sphere  of  ours — about  a  tenth  part, 
I  suppose,  of  this  habitable  globe — which,  of  itself,  to  the  mind  of 
Isaac  Newton,  or  Herschell,  or  La  Place,  if  they  had  not  been  born 
and  lived  here,  would  seem  to  be  a  very  insignificant  portion  of  the 
universe.  And  yet,  one  would  suppose,  from  the  debates  we  have 
had  here,  that  we  really  believed  the  happiness  of  all  worlds,  and 
certainly  of  untold  generations,  depended  upon  the  election  of  A  or 
B,  to  stand  up  there  in  that  chair,  like  a  "woodpecker  tapping  a  hol 
low  beech  tree."  [Great  laughter].  That  tapping,  sir,  has  been  to 
us,  so  far,  the  only  exhibition  of  power  or  influence  belonging  to 
that  office,  about  which  we  have  been  in  angry  contest  for  the  last 
six  weeks.  We  become  so  accustomed  to  the  sound,  that  we  do  not 
think  we  are  in  order  unless  we  hear  that  tapping.  We  do  not  think 
we  are  in  Congress,  unless  somebody  is  calling  us  to  order,  accom 
panied,  too,  by  that  continuous  ever-recurring  tapping. 

But,  sir,  I  was  referring  to  the  allusion  made  by  the  gentleman 
from  Mississippi  to  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts,  and  an  "anti- 
Slavery  Bible."  How  is  this,  sir?  One  wants  an  anti-Slavery  Bible, 
and  he  is  sure  he  has  it  in  our  present  version.  Another  wants  a 
pro-Slavery  Bible,  and  he  is  equally  certain  he  has  it  in  the  same 
sacred  book.  Let  each  be  content  with  his  belief,  and  not  interfere 
line  with  that  of  his  brother ;  let  us  not  dissolve  the  Union  upon  con 
flicting  constructions  of  the  Bible.  I  think  it  is  certain  that  those 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  389 

patriarchs  held  slaves,  and  that  they  transmitted  them  to  their  chil 
dren  ;  but  they  did  not  make  slaves  of  their  own  people ;  and  some 
other  things  are  very  certain.  This  fugitive  slave  law  that  we  hear 
so  much  about ;  I  will  not  pretend  to  go  into  particulars,  but  I  think 
it  will  appear  that  it,  or  a  rule  something  like  it,  had  its  construc 
tions  and  repeals  in  the  Bible  time. 

I  think  that  when  the  bondwoman  Hagar  left  Abraham,  with 
her  master's  consent,  there  being  some  disturbance  in  his  domestic 
relations,  [much  laughter]  the  boy  Ishmael,  not  being  the  child  of 
promise,  and  being  in  the  habit  of  making  impertinent  remarks 
about  the  conduct  of  family  affairs,  [  laughter  ]  was  sent  off  with  his 
mother  into  the  wilderness,  with  a  loaf  of  bread  and  a  bottle  of 
water.  We  are  told  that  Hagar,  being  exhausted  and  famished  by 
hunger,  laid  the  boy  down  to  die,  and  that  the  Angel  of  the  Lord 
came  there.  If  I  remember  aright,  it  is  so  written  in  that  book. 
And  what  advice  did  he  give  to  this  bondwoman  and  her  son  ?  The 
Angel  told  this  woman  that  she  was  in  very  bad  circumstances,  but 
not  to  be  discouraged;  to  pick  up  the  boy  and  hold  him  in  her 
hands,  for  he  would  become  a  great  filibuster.  [Roars  of  laughter.] 
That  is  the  English  of  what  the  Angel  said,  when  you  use  our  pres 
ent  word  for  expressing  the  idea  conveyed  by  the  record  of  this 
remarkable  historical  fact.  His  hand  \vould  be  against  every  man, 
and  every  man's  hand  would  be  against  him.  That  declaration  has 
been  literally  fulfilled  in  the  progeny  of  that  boy  up  to  this  very 
hour ;  and  the  only  nation  that  has  made  any  impression  upon  his 
posterity  has  been  the  French  in  Algiers.  The  French  killed  off 
these  filibusters,  until  they  have  got  them  into  some  very  imperfect 
kind  of  obedience.  From  the  day  that  the  Angel  of  God  made  that 
prophecy  in  reference  to  this  slave  boy,  his  progeny  have  gone  on 
filibustering,  fighting  and  robbing.  This  good  quality  they  have 
had,  I  believe,  in  all  their  history;  if  you  broke  their  bread  and 
tasted  their  salt,  they  would  die  by  you.  I  would  that  some  of  our 
Southern  friends  would  treat  some  of  our  Yankee  gentlemen  as  well 
when  they  go  amongst  them.  [Laughter.]  The  Angel  told  this 
mother  that  she  had  better  go  back  into  Slavery.  If  that  Angel  had 
been  an  agent  of  the  underground  railway,  then  this  mother  would 
have  been  advised  to  take  herself  and  son  off  to  Canada.  [Laughter.] 

So  much  for  the  historical  fact.  That  very  able  man  who  was 
the  father  of  that  boy  had  another  family,  and  they,  in  a  generation 
or  two  after  this,  were  sold  into  Slavery,  and  so  they  remained,  we 


390  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

are  told,  for  four  hundred  and  seventy  years.  At  the  end  of  that 
time  God  abolished  that  servitude  and  repealed  the  fugitive  slave 
law,  very  much  to  the  dismay  and  astonishment  of  the  pursuing 
masters,  and  greatly  to  the  gratification  of  those  owing  labor  and  ser 
vice  to  them.  Then  he  allowed  them  to  go  home — to  their  Africa, 
or,  to  speak  without  figure,  to  the  home  of  their  fathers.  That  re 
peal  of  the  Egyptian  fugitive  slave  bill,  on  the  shore  of  the  Red  Sea, 
with  all  its  incidents,  is  worthy  of  some  notice  now,  and  at  all  times. 
We  hear  much  said  of  women  taking  part  in  politics  now-a-days. 
Something  very  like  it  occurred  on  the  occasion  to  which  I  refer. 
Just  as  the  bubbling  death-groan  of  the  Egyptian  host  had  risen  to 
the  surface  of  the  sea,  and  was  borne  away  upon  the  hot  breath  of 
the  winds,  a  woman,  a  notable  woman,  then  and  there  broke  forth  in 
a  very  remarkable  triumphal  song.  Miriam,  the  sister  of  Aaron, 
with  all  the  dark-eyed  daughters  of  the  fugitive  Hebrew  slaves, 
shouted  out,  "Sing  ye  to  the  Lord,  for  gloriously  hath  He  triumphed; 
the  horse  and  his  rider  hath  He  cast  into  the  sea."  That  was  their 
"Hail  Columbia."  Sir,  that  song  of  the  prophetess  has  rung  in  my 
ears  in  day,  and  often  in  night  time,  too.  In  my  dreams  of  the  ulti 
mate  destiny  of  man,  I  have  supposed  it  would  ring  in  the  ears  and 
agitate  the  souls  of  men  till  the  words  "kings  and  subjects,  rulers 
and  ruled,"  should  be  lost  in  two  words,  "brothers — sisters." 

Mr.  Clerk,  I  warn  my  brethren  from  the  North  and  my  brethren 
from  the  South,  that  they  will  scarcely  agree  as  to  what  are  the  general 
teachings  of  the  Bible  on  this  subject  of  Slavery  as  practiced  in  our 
times.  I  think  parts  of  that  Book  very  clearly  inculcate  the  doctrine 
which  in  our  republican  form  of  government  is  held  very  sacred  by 
us,  that  the  laws  of  the  country,  as  they  were  established,  should  be 
obeyed  by  all  good  citizens.  Certainly,  Christ  and  the  Apostles 
taught  that  they  did  not  come  to  overturn  Governments,  but  to 
search  into  the  wicked  hearts  of  men,  and  subvert  the  kingdom  of 
Satan  therein.  The  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  [MR.  BURLING- 
AME],  I  dare  say,  can  find  some  authority  satisfactory  to  him  for  his 
doctrine,  and  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi  [MR.  BARKSDALE]  for 
his ;  but  both  should  draw  the  true  moral,  as  philosophical  Christian 
historians  would  do,  and  agree  that  that  Book  teaches  us  one  lesson, 
at  least,  which  in  substance  is,  that  in  a  country  like  ours,  where 
every  man  has  an  agency  in  the  making  of  the  laws,  all  should  ren 
der  to  them  obedience,  until  they  shall  be  made  better  or  be  repealed. 
For  unless  the  laws  shall  be  generally  obeyed,  we  will  have  nothing 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  391 

but  anarchy  organized,  which  cannot  be  a  condition  pleasing  to  Him 
who  is  the  common  Father  of  all  men.  Hence  the  Republican  doc 
trine  is,  that  the  laws  of  the  country  ought  to  be  obeyed.  I  assert 
that  our  Republican  leaders,  generals,  colonels,  majors,  captains, 
corporals  and  privates,  all  of  them,  are  conservative;  and  that  the 
Republican  party  is  a  law-abiding  party ;  and  whosoever  believes  the 
contrary,  labors  under  great  ignorance  of  that  party  and  the  men 
who  compose  it. 

Mr.   Clerk,   I  wish  to  look  for  one  moment  at  some  other  facts 
found  in  the  historical  portion  of  the  Bible,  having  a  curious  bearing, 
at  least,  on  this  question  of  Negro  Slavery.      We  are  told  in  that 
same    Book    that   the    people    of  the    globe,    except    eight,    were 
destroyed  in  a  deluge.      Noah  and  his  family  only  were  preserved. 
That  old  patriarch  seems  to  have  been  remarkable  for  nothing,  so  far 
as  I  can  find  out,  except  for  his  strong  faith  in  the  word  of  God,  and 
his  remarkable  nautical  adventure.      Noah  had  three  sons,  from  whom 
have  sprung  all  the  people  now  upon  the  face  of  this  globe.      We 
are  told  by  sacred,  and  I  think  pretty  fully,  too,  by  profane  histor 
ians,  that  Japhet  is  the  father  of  our  race.      We,  then,  are  all  chil 
dren  of  that  man.      We  have,  it  is  true,  to  go  far  back  to  get  at  it. 
He  is  our  original  propositiis.     Shem  is  the  father  of  the  migratory, 
wandering  Asiatic  family.      Ham,    it  is  said,   was  the  father  of  the 
negroes.     This,   I  think  it  will  be  found,   is  shown  by  our  accredited 
historical  books.     Some  have  wondered  how  it  happened  that  Japhet, 
born  of  the  same  mother,  son  of  the  same  father,  should  be  a  gentle 
man  with  features  and  complexion  like  you  and  myself;  Shem,  a  yel 
low  fellow,  with  high  cheek  bones ;  and  Ham,  a  negro,  with  black  face 
and  crisp,  curled  hair.     This  difficulty  is  surmounted  by  one  class  of 
ethnologists  by  attributing  the  difference  to  climatic  influences,  in 
which  I  think  there  is  great  plausibility.      Be  this  as  it  may,  the  rela 
tionship  is  the  same.     Japhet,  it  is  agreed,  had  large  acquisitiveness, 
and  hence  his  superiority ;  and  it  may  be  said,  with  equal  truth,  that 
his  children  are  not  deficient  in  this  capital  virtue,  for  such  it  is  held 
to  be  in  our  times  by  us  in  this  model  Republic.     They  also,  it  is 
said,   have  quick  and  powerful  faculties  for  numerals ;  and  regard  in 
theory,   as  well  as  practice,   the  multiplication  tables  as  the  acme  of 
human  knowledge.      But  let  us  look  at  this  family  imbroglio.      We 
are  the  sons  of  Japhet,  and  the  negro  is  the  son  of  Ham ;  we  are  the 
sons,   respectively,   of  these  two  brothers;  and  consequently  we,   the 
sons  of  Japhet,  are  cousins  to  Cuffee,  he  being  the  son  of  our  Uncle 


392  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

Ham.  I  have  often  thought  if  the  negro,  as  seems  from  this  account 
of  us  to  be  probable,  had  really  that  relationship  to  us,  that  we  cer 
tainly  had  not  treated  our  cousin  like  a  gentleman.  [Renewed 
laughter]. 

So  you  see  there  are  some  curious  reflections  belonging  to  the 
subject.  But,  short-sighted  mortals  as  we  are,  all  we  can  do  now  is 
to  look  at  the  black  man  as  lie  is,  and  the  white  man  as  he  is.  One 
of  your  statesmen  of  the  South,  whom  I  have  had  the  pleasure  of 
knowing  for  a  good  many  years — I  allude  to  Mr.  Stephens,  of  Geor 
gia — in  a  recent  speech,  said  that  he  was  in  favor  of  Mr.  Seward's 
higher  law,  not  exactly  in  its  application,  but  he  said,  that  if  it  be 
not  better  for  the  white  man  as  well  as  the  black  man,  that  one 
should  be  master  and  the  other  the  slave,  they  had  no  business  with 
Slavery,  and  should  surrender  it.  I  give  the  substance,  but  perhaps 
not  the  exact  words.  All  who  have  read  that  gentleman's  speech  to 
the  people  of  Georgia  will  know  that  I  quote  him  fairly.  That,  I 
think,  is  the  true  philosophic  ground  upon  which  to  put  it.  If  it  be 
better  that  the  negro  should  stand  in  the  relation  of  slave,  better  for 
all  concerned,  then  Slavery  is  right.  If  the  converse  be  true,  then 
Slavery  is  wrong,  and  of  course,  if  it  be  possible,  should  be  peace 
ably  abolished.  Thus  this  vexed  question  is  stated  and  submitted  to 
the  world  by  a  living,  leading  Southern  statesman.  Let  calm  reason 
and  fair  discussion  by  those  whom  it  concerns  ascertain  the  truth. 
The  path  of  duty  is  then  made  plain  to  all. 

I  am  not  now  and  here  about  to  argue  for  either  side  of  the 
question  thus  generally  propounded  ;  but  one  thing  I  will  say :  It  is 
not  a  good  thing  for  white  or  black  men  to  hold  negroes  as  slaves  in 
the  State  of  Ohio,  because  we  have  tried  it  We  are  sure  it  is 
better  that  the  black  slave  should  not  be  where  the  white  man  has  to 
work  by  the  side  of  him.  It  is  better,  we  think,  that  the  work  of 
our  State  should  be  done  by  its  white  men.  We  have  concluded, 
without  any  doubt,  that  wherever  the  white  man  can  live  and  work, 
there,  at  least,  no  system  of  forced  labor  should  exist.  It  has  been 
ordained  that  man  shall  "earn  his  bread  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow." 
There  are  but  very  few  men  living  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  if  they 
live  honestly,  who  are  not  compelled  to  do  something,  by  head  or 
hand,  or  both,  for  their  own  subsistence.  For  instance:  In  the 
whole  fifteen  Southern  States  there  are  only  about  four  hundred  thou 
sand  who  own  slaves. 

MR.  KEITT,  (in  his  seat) — Heads  of  families. 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  393 

MR.  CORWIN — I  was  speaking  of  the  heads  of  families.  That 
may  involve  an  interest  of  two  millions  of  people.  Let  it  be  so.  I 
am  not  particular  about  it.  There  are  eight  million  white  people  at 
the  South,  are  there  not?  I  wish  there  were  one  hundred  million, 
for  I  want  the  South  to  be  strong.  A  great  majority  of  the  South 
ern  people  must  labor  at  something,  as  I  doubt  not  they  do.  They 
who  own  slaves  are  the  exceptions  to  this  old  rule.  I  am  not  about 
to  make  any  invidious  or  ungracious  remarks  on  these  two  classes  of 
people.  I  am  free  to  admit,  and  happy  to  say,  with  truth,  that, 
North  and  South,  we  are  the  most  favored  and  the  happiest  people 
that  ever  lived  in  the  tide  of  time,  and  I  think  the  history  of  the 
world  will  prove  it.  But  we  will  not  allow  ourselves  to  think  so ;  we 
are  like  Mr.  Brown  in  the  farce — we  will  allow  ourselves  to  be 
"excited!"  As  there  is  no  hostile  flag  from  any  part  of  the  globe 
to  disturb  the  repose  of  our  thirty  millions  of  free  people,  we,  of 
course — such  is  the  frailty  and  unsatisfied  nature  of  man — will  find 
causes  for  fearful  conflict,  at  least  among  ourselves.  And  yet  I 
would  under  no  circumstances  vote  to  furnish  men  and  means  to 
carry  on  war  abroad,  merely  for  the  sake  of  avoiding  internal  strife. 
I  prefer  what  I  am  sure,  if  we  are  not  a  doomed  people,  is  easy  and 
practicable,  to  put  our  passions  and  party  animosities  under  recogni 
zance  to  keep  the  peace  where  we  are. 

Now,  as  to  the  reason,  so  often  demanded  on  the  other  side  of 
the  House,  why  the  people  of  the  North  would  prohibit  Slavery  in  the 
Territories  of  the  United  States.  I  shall  be  prepared,  I  hope,  to 
discuss  this  subject  without  excitement,  fully,  whenever  it  properly 
comes  before  us,  after  this  House  shall  organize.  But  I  cannot  for 
bear  a  hasty  view  of  the  subject,  even  now.  It  is  called  for  by  the 
great  misapprehension  of  gentlemen  on  the  other  side,  and  the 
denunciations,  founded  on  that  misapprehension,  to  which  we  have, 
up  to  this  time,  listened  with  a  most  exemplary  patience.  The 
Republican  party  does  claim,  and  has  always  claimed,  and  the  Demo 
cratic  party  always  claimed  until  about  the  year  1852,  throughout  all 
the  North,  that  Congress  had  plenary  and  unquestionable  power, 
under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  to  prohibit  Negro  Slav 
ery  in  Territories,  and  that  it  is  the  duty  of  Congress  to  exert  that 
power  whenever  Slavery  did  not  exist  in  any  Territory  where  the 
white  man  could  live  and  work.  My  Democratic  friend  from  Ohio 
[MR.  VALLANDIGHAM]  stated  here,  a  few  days  ago,  that  the  Demo 
cratic  party  had  been  wrong  upon  that  subject — meaning  that  they 


394  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

had  heretofore  conceded  this  power,  and  insisted  on  its  exercise. 
Now,  it  is  certain,  to  look  at  it  historically,  that,  in  the  progress  of 
your  Government,  the  first  founders  of  it  did  proceed  upon  that  prin 
ciple.  The  ordinance  of  1787  was  made  under  the  old  Confedera 
tion  ;  it  was  made  by  very  many  of  the  men  who  sat  in  the  Conven 
tion  which  formed  the  present  Constitution  of  the  United  States ;  and 
Virginia,  by  all  her  delegates,  voted  for  that  ordinance. 

MR.  MILLSON — There  is  no  doubt,  as  the  gentleman  from  Ohio  [MR. 
CORWIN]  has  remarked,  that  the  opinions  which  he  has  imputed  to  Washing 
ton,  Jefferson  and  other  distinguished  statesmen  of  the  ante-Revolutionary 
period,  were  entertained  by  them.  But  it  should  be  remembered  that  it  was 
before  the  abolition  of  the  African  slave  trade  that  those  views  were 
expressed.  It  was  while  standing  in  the  living  presence  of  the  victims  of 
that  traffic  that  their  opinions  were  formed.  It  was  natural,  sir,  and  almost 
unavoidable,  that  they  should  think  on  Slavery  only  as  a  part  of  that  legal 
ized  system  of  rapine  and  plunder.  They  at  least  would  regard  it  as  the 
motive  prompting  men  to  the  perpetration  of  crime.  They  did  not  see  Slav 
ery  as  we  see  it.  Indeed,  sir,  it  was  not  then,  as  it  is  now,  a  social  system 
established  between  two  classes  of  our  own  native  population,  intended  to 
promote  the  welfare  and  happiness  of  both ;  an  institution  of  society,  estab 
lishing  a  just  and  wise  subordination  and  dependence  between  two  races,  liv 
ing  together  in  almost  equal  numbers,  who  socially  never  could  be  equal,  and 
whom,  therefore,  political  equality  would  convert  into  fierce  and  implacable 
enemies. 

MR.  CORWIN — I  thank  the  gentleman.  That  is  what  I  was 
going  to  say  myself,  but  the  gentleman  has  expressed  it  much  better 
than  I  should  have  done  it.  I  was  about  to  refer  to  that  ordinance 
of  1787,  whence  I  deduce  the  conclusion  that  the  men  of  that  day 
did  believe  that  it  was  the  best  thing  they  could  do  with  the  five 
States  provided  for  in  that  ordinance,  to  prohibit  Negro  Slavery 
there. 

MR.  SMITH,  of  Virginia — Will  the  gentleman  permit  me  to  say  a  word 
here  ?  Mr.  Madison  expressly  states  that  the  object  of  that  prohibition  was 
to  take  away  the  field  left  open  for  the  importation  of  Africans 

MR.  CORWIN — I  was  about  to  speak  of  that  opinion  of  Mr.  Mad 
ison.  I  know  from  conversations,  which  even  so  young  a  man  as 
myself  has  had  with  the  men  of  that  period,  that  Virginia  had  some 
reasons  for  agreeing  to  the  prohibition  of  Slavery  in  that  part  of  the 
Territory,  altogether  unconnected  with  the  institution  of  Slavery. 
But  I  shall  insist  that  the  main  reasons  were  the  objections  to  Slavery 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  395 


itself.  Virginia  was  then  a  great  State,  as  she  is  now.  "There  were 
giants  in  those  days."  She  was  afraid  that  the  rich  lands  of  the 
Northwest,  with  Slavery  tolerated  there,  would  induce  eminent  men 
whom  she  had  at  home,  to  go  there  ;  and  she  did  not  wish  to  part 
with  those  illustrious  men.  She  wished  to  keep  them  where  they 
were.  Virginia  wanted  then,  as  she  wants  now,  and  as  every  State 
wants,  to  keep  as  much  greatness  and  as  much  glory  in  their  old 
homes  as  possible.  Something  like  that  was  in  operation  then.  But 
I  can  hardly  suppose  that  that  was  the  controlling  motive  with  the 
great  men  who  did  that  great  act.  Their  often-expressed  abhorrence 
of  Slavery  proves  it  was  not.  A  great  act  it  was  for  good,  for  last 
ing  good,  as  subsequent  events  have  shown.  It  was  provided  that 
all  the  States  that  were  to  come  into  the  Federal  Union  under  that 
ordinance  should  prohibit  Slavery  ;  and  it  was  under  that  provision 
that  Ohio,  the  first  State  that  came  in  under  it,  excluded  Slavery  in 
her  State  Constitution. 

Now,  what  did  the  men  of  that  day  believe  ?  They  were  wise 
men,  philosophic  statesmen.  The  terrific  storm  of  the  Revolution 
had  blown  over  them  ;  and  we  all  know  that  the  minds  of  men,  after 
having  been  much  agitated,  and  relieved  from  the  causes  of  that  agi 
tation,  then  become  so  calm  that  in  no  period  of  their  lives  are  they 
so  well  situated  for  cool  reason  or  calm  reflection  as  immediately- 
after  such  an  event.  They  were  Americans.  They  were  Republic 
ans  ;  I  do  not  use  the  terms  in  a  party  sense.  They  called  them 
selves  Republicans.  We  call  ourselves  so  now,  and  we  do  believe 
we  are  following  in  our  principles  this  day  right  after  them.  What 
I  beg  anybody  to  convince  me  of  is,  that  I  am  mistaken.  When  so 
convinced,  if  that  be  possible,  I  shall  surely  acknowledge  my  mis 
take,  and  abandon  my  present  convictions.  The  great,  the  good  as 
well  as  great  men  of  1787  ordained  by  law  that  there  never  should  be 
any  Slavery  in  that  part  of  Virginia  which  had  been  ceded  to  the 
United  States  by  the  deed  of  1784.  Would  they  have  done  so  if 
they  had.  considered  Slavery  to  be  a  good  institution  ?  I  think  not. 
There  was  no  overruling  necessity  for  such  a  prohibition,  arising  out 
of  circumstances  unconnected  with  Slavery.  It  was  their  belief  that 
the  greatest  blessing  they  could  bestow  upon  these  five  new  States 
was  the  prohibition  of  Negro  Slavery.  They  thought  that  an  indus 
trious,  intelligent  community  of  free  white  men,  having  no  degraded 
labor  among  them,  was  the  best  community  that  could  be  established. 
I  suppose  they  had  read  Montesquieu,  and  believed  with  him,  that 


396  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

without  virtue,  honesty  and  intelligence,  a  Republic  is  impossible. 
I  suppose  that  is  a  maxim  on  which  everybody  agrees.  They  be 
lieved  that  sort  of  a  system  would  be  best  promoted  in  a  country 
where  white  men  can  work,  by  saying  that  there  should  be  no  forced 
labor  there. 

I  am  not  considering  now  whether  or  not  these  great  men  were 
mistaken.  I  only  wish,  at  this  point,  to  say,  that  this  much  abused 
Republican  party,  so  much  misunderstood  to-day,  is  acting  exactly 
as  these  men  acted  in  1787,  who,  whether  under  the  Constitution  or 
under  the  Articles  of  Confederation,  forbade  Slavery  in  all  the  North 
western  country,  and  forbade  it  because  they  thought  it,  as  all  their 
declarations  at  that  time  prove,  a  great  evil.  I  mean  to  say — and  I 
hope  all  sides  of  this  House  will  understand  me  to  say — that  if 
the  men  of  1787  had  believed  that  Slavery  was  not  only  a  benign 
institution,  but  one  that  was  friendly  to  the  white  man  in  that  cli 
mate,  they  would  not  have  prohibited  it.  They  were  not  the  kind  of 
men  to  do  anything  for  party  expediency.  They  were  not  contend 
ing  as  to  who  should  hammer  this  House  to  order.  They  were  lay 
ing  deep  the  foundations  of  this  mighty  Empire ;  and  they  acted 
under  the  profound  responsibility  which  such  a  condition  of  things 
imposed.  They  spoke  with  sincerity,  they  acted  with  sincerity,  in 
the  presence  of  that  God  who  they  believed,  and  I  believe,  had  most 
manifestly  bared  his  right  arm  in  every  battle-field  of  the  Revolution 
in  favor  of  our  right  of  self-government  and  independence.  They, 
then,  seeing  that  there  was  a  territory  not  yet  comprehended  within 
the  limits  of  any  State,  having  no  power  to  do  anything  as  a  State, 
prohibited  the  existence  of  Slavery  therein.  That  is  what  they  did ; 
and  such  men  must  have  done  that  act  for  the  reason  that  they 
believed  it  right,  and  thought,  as  we  Republicans  think,  that  Slavery 
is  a  great  evil,  at  least  in  any  climate  where  white  men  and  free  labor 
ers  can  live  and  work. 

That  territory  of  Virginia,  which  she  claimed  under  a  very  old 
charter,  was  no  longer  the  territory  of  Virginia.  It  was  regarded  as 
territory  acquired  by  the  common  blood  and  treasure  of  the  people 
of  the  Confederacy,  just  as  your  territories  won  from  Mexico ;  and, 
under  these  circumstances,  they  then  declared:  "We  will,  under 
this  Confederation,  agree  that  there  shall  be  no  Slavery  in  this  terri 
tory,  thus  won  by  the  common  blood  and  treasure  of  us  all."  They 
so  ordained ;  and  they  made  it  a  matter  of  compact  forever  between 
the  existing  Government  and  the  States  to  be  formed  out  of  that 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  397 

territory,  that  every  such  State  should  always  exclude  Slavery.  I  do 
not  say  what  effect  that  would  have  under  our  modern  notions  about 
compacts.  Perhaps,  in  modern  times,  we  might  believe  that  a  State, 
after  it  came  into  the  Union,  no  matter  what  bargain  it  made  to  get 
in,  was  such  a  mysterious  and  omnipotent  sovereign,  that  all  obliga 
tions  passed  from  it,  and  ceased  to  have  binding  effect.  Be  this  as 
it  may,  my  purpose  is  now  to  show  what  were  the  views  of  those 
men,  the  founders  of  our  Government,  respecting  Slavery.  That  is 
the  fact  I  wish  to  show. 

Now,  then,  suppose  another  Territory  to  be  acquired  by  the 
common  blood  and  the  common  treasure  of  the  United  States,  in  a 
latitude  like  that  of  the  Northwestern  Territory.  The  Republican 
party  say:  "We  will  exclude  Slavery  from  that  Territory,  as 
the  framers  of  the  Constitution  under  the  Confederation  did 
exclude  it  from  just  such  territory  as  that."  And  if  we  do  that,  are 
we  to  be  charged  with  an  attempt  wilfully  to  subvert  the  institutions 
of  this  country  and  to  do  wrong  to  the  South?  If  those  Old 
Fathers  of  the  Revolution — our  Fathers,  the  Fathers  of  our  Nation, 
the  authors  of  all  that  we  boast  of,  and  all  that  is  around  us — if  they 
acted  in  this  way,  may  you  not  pardon  us  for  doing  just  as  they  did? 
Are  we  not,  at  least,  excusable  for  entertaining  the  opinion  that  it 
would  be  better  to  confine  the  institution  to  its  present  limits,  or  cer 
tainly  to  exclude  it  from  a  new  Territory,  as  they  did  ?  If  you  think 
they  acted  well  and  wisely  upon  this  subject,  it  is  your  duty,  under 
like  circumstances,  to  imitate  their  example,  not  calculating  too  curi 
ously,  as  they  did  not,  about  a  few  dollars'  worth  of  slave  property, 
which  you  may  not  be  able  to  sell  to,  or  carry  with  you  into  each 
Territory ;  but  considering,  as  they  did,  and  pondering,  deeply  and 
profoundly,  what  is  to  be  the  effect  upon  the  people  who  are  to  live 
in  the  Territories,  from  generation  to  generation  and  from  time  to 
time,  during  the  whole  period  of  man's  history  in  the  world.  Well, 
you  will  say,  they  may  have  been  wrong.  Admit  that  irreverent, 
preposterous  supposition,  and  answer  me,  boastful,  self-sufficient 
Democracy,  do  you  blame  us  for  having  an  affectionate  regard  for 
the  memory  of  those  old  men,  and  a  fixed  belief  that  their  acts  were 
wisely  and  well  done,  and  might  be  safely  imitated  by  the  Demo 
cratic  sages  of  1860?  I  hope  you  will  not  say  that  I  am  out  of 
order,  on  either  side  of  the  House,  when  I  declare,  in  the  presence 
of  God  that  I  do  believe,  that  if  we  had  twenty  of  these  very  men 
in  this  House,  this  question  would  not  even  be  mooted,  and  we 


398  SPEECHES    OP   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

should  have  organized  in  one  day.  We  do  not  work  as  they  worked ; 
we  do  not  talk  like  them ;  and,  worst  of  all,  we  do  not  think  as  they 
thought. 

Why  are  we,  I  ask  again,  to  be  denounced  as  bad  men  for  desir 
ing  to  act  as  our  fathers  acted?  We  wish  to  do  just  what  they  did 
under  similar  circumstances.  We  desire,  if  the  country  gives  us  the 
power,  to  do  all  things  rightly;  and  in  doing  so,  we  turn  to  the 
bright  examples  of  better  days  for  our  guide.  Unhappily  for  us, 
the  North  and  the  South  have  no  confidence  in  each  other,  and  mad 
ness  rules  the  hour.  You  think  you  have  diverse  and  opposing 
interests.  This  is  all  a  mistake — a  great  mistake.  Whatever  pro 
motes  the  interest  of  Alabama  and  Mississippi  is,  in  a  national  point 
of  view,  equally  favorable  to  the  interest  of  the  State  of  Ohio.  One 
gentleman  has  spoken  of  Ohio  as  an  Empire  State.  If  she  be  such 
a  State,  is  not  Alabama  made  stronger  by  her  connection  with  a 
strong  rather  than  a  weak  State  ?  In  any  national  conflict,  Alabama 
has  a  powerful  ally.  In  this  view,  it  is  too  plain  for  argument  that 
every  State  is  interested  in  the  prosperity  of  every  other,  and  each 
in  the  prosperity  and  happiness  of  all.  We  are  not  rivals,  we  are 
brothers.  And  here,  I  may  ask,  without  egotism,  why  is  young 
Ohio  so  powerful  ?  Kentucky  is  older  by  many  years ;  whilst,  with  a 
climate  and  soil  unsurpassed  by  few,  perhaps  none,  in  the  Union ; 
with  a  people  surpassed  by  no  community  for  enterprise,  for  courage, 
for  constancy,  for  all  the  qualities  which  give  character  and  influence 
and  just  pride  to  States,  Ohio  certainly,  from  some  cause,  has  very 
far  exceeded  her  elder  sister  in  developing  wealth,  population  and  all 
that  constitutes  a  strong  and  powerful  State.  Why  is  this  so?  The 
cause,  I  think,  will  be  found  in  facts  which  give  Ohio  no  cause  to 
boast  of  herself,  but  in  that  very  institution  which  forms  the  topic 
of  all  this  debate.  Kentucky  is  my  native  State.  I  knew  her  well ; 
I  knew  her  great  men,  and  love  them  and  honor  them ;  but  Ohio  and 
her,  side  by  side,  joined  in  heart  as  well  as  neighborhood — look  at 
them  and  you  will  see  the  difference  between  them  to  which  I  refer. 
There  is  history,  that  may  be  studied  with  profit,  touching  this 
matter. 

My  colleague  [MR.  Cox]  spoke  of  a  meeting  upon  the  western 
reserve  in  Ohio.  He  is  a  young  gentleman,  a  rising  man,  and,  if  he 
does  not  get  bad  habits  upon  the  Democratic  side  of  the  House,  may 
come  to  something  some  day  hence.  [Laughter]  He  amused  him 
self  with  the  comic  power  he  possesses  in  imitating  the  nasal  twang 


ON   THE    SLAVERY   QUESTION.  399 

of  the  Yankees  of  that  reserve.  It  sounded  strange  to  you,  as  it  did 
to  him,  and  so  it  did  to  the  army  of  Prince  Rupert  at  Marston  Moor, 
when  the  ancestors  of  these  men  rushed  into  battle  against  the 
mailed  chivalry  and  curled  darlings  of  the  court  of  Charles  I.  What 
happened  then  ?  Something  worthy  to  be  noted,  and  not  forgotten. 
Stout  Cromwell  and  his  unconquerable  Ironsides,  when  the  day  was 
well  nigh  lost,  charged  with  resistless  fury  upon  the  proud  columns 
of  that  host  of  gentlemen,  as  they  were  boastfully  denominated,  and 
lo !  Prince  Rupert  and  his  host  were  no  longer  there.  They  were 
scattered  as  the  dried  leaves  of  autumn  are  before  the  storm-blast  of 
the  coming  winter.  That  same  nasal  twang  rang  out,  on  that  day, 
their  well-known  war-cry,  "the  sword  of  the  Lord  and  Gideon." 
These  Yankees  are  a  peculiar  people ;  they  are  an  industrious,  thriv 
ing,  pains-taking  race  of  men.  The  frailties  of  these  men  grow  out 
of  their  very  virtues,  those  stern  virtues  which  founded  liberty  in 
England,  and  baptized  it  in  their  own  blood  upon  Bunker  Hill,  in 
America.  They  will  do  so  again  if  there  is  a  necessity  for  it.  It  is 
a  hard  matter  to  deal  with  men  who  do  verily  believe  that  God 
Almighty  and  His  Angels  encamp  round  about  them.  What  do 
they  care  for  earthly  things  or  earthly  power  ?  What  do  they  care 
for  Kings,  and  Lords,  and  Presidents?  They  fully  believe  they  are 
heirs  of  the  King  of  Kings.  In  the  hour  of  battle,  they  seem  to 
themselves  to  stand,  like  the  great  Hebrew  leader,  in  the  cleft  of  the 
rock ;  the  glory  of  the  most  high  God  passes  by  them,  and  they 
catch  a  gleam  of  its  brightness.  If  you  come  in  conflict  with  the 
purposes  of  such  men,  they  will  regard  duty  as  everything,  life  as 
nothing.  So  it  appeared  in  our  war  of  the  Revolution. 

The  gentleman  from  Mississippi  [MR.  BARKSDALE]  says  that  the 
North  got  more  Revolutionary  pensions  than  the  South.  I  do  not 
know  how  that  is.  How  did  it  happen  ?  Gentlemen  tell  me  they 
would  not  have  pensions  in  the  South.  I  am  glad  if  it  be  so.  I 
happen  to  know  professionally  something  of  Revolutionary  claims 
for  lands.  Virginia,  when  she  ceded  the  Northwestern  Territory  to 
the  United  States,  reserved  all  the  lands  lying  between  the  Little 
Miami  and  Scioto  rivers,  to  satisfy  the  claims  of  her  troops  in  the 
Virginia  line  on  continental  establishment.  A  large  district  in  Ken 
tucky  had  been  taken  up  to  satisfy  the  same  class  of  claims.  All  the 
reservation  in  Ohio  has  been  absorbed,  and  still  land  warrants  come, 
and  scrip  has  been  granted ;  and  yet  the  Virginia  line  on  continental 
establishment  is  not  yet  satisfied.  Sir,  it  has  seemed  to  us  that  the 


400  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

army  of  Xerxes  might  have  all  claimed  and  been  satisfied  before  this 
time.  But  this  is  all  aside  and  apart  from  the  proper  subject  before 
us.  I  am  not  now,  never  have  been,  and  never  will  be,  one  to  so  far 
violate  history  and  good  taste  as  to  draw  invidious  distinctions 
between  this  or  that  State  or  colony,  who,  by  their  combined  valor, 
won  the  independence  of  all  the  States.  While  I  must  always  ven 
erate  the  men  of  New  England  of  that  day,  I  still  turn  with  una 
bated  admiration  to  those  of  the  South,  especially  to  Virginia — glo 
rious  "Old  Dominion,"  illustrious  alike  for  her  heroes  in  war  and  her 
sages  in  peace ;  and  if  it  depend  on  vote  or  effort  of  mine,  the  last 
land  warrant  of  the  last  descendant  of  her  Revolutionary  heroes  shall 
be  located  on  lands,  if  such  can  be  found,  rich  as  the  delta  of  the 
Nile ;  in  a  climate,  if  it  be  possible,  healthful  as  was  Eden  ere  yet 
sin  had  brought  death  into  the  home  of  the  first  family  of  man. 

Mr.  Clerk,  it  is  my  wish  to  show  that  the  Republican  party, 
which  proposes  to  prohibit  Slavery  in  the  Teiritorics,  is  in  that  prin 
ciple  following  the  example  of  the  men  of  the  Revolutionary  period, 
both  before  and  after  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution.  The  ordi 
nance  of  1787,  prior  to,  or  rather  cotemporary  with,  the  Constitution, 
shows  that  the  men  who,  under  the  Confederation,  enacted  that  ordi 
nance,  thought  it  most  wise  and  beneficial  toward  slave  and  free 
States  both,  to  prohibit  Slavery  in  the  Northwestern  Territory. 
Now,  if  those  men  were  wise  men — if  they  were  patriots — then 
what  is  the  Republican  party  ?  It  proposes  to  continue  their  policy ; 
to  imitate  their  example ;  to  follow  in  their  footsteps ;  and  this  is  all 
on  the  subject  of  Slavery  which  we  propose  to  do.  Were  the  men 
of  1787  wrong,  then  indeed  in  this  particular  is  the  Republican  party 
wrong.  If  they  were  right  in  the  policy  which  dictated  the  ordinance 
of  1787,  then  is  the  Republican  party  right,  and  the  Democratic 
party  wrong — totally,  entirely  wrong.  But  you  say  this  ordinance 
was  not  enacted  under  the  Constitution,  but  prior  to  it ;  and  that, 
under  and  by  virtue  of  the  Constitution,  we  have  no  power  to  pro 
hibit  Slavery  in  Territories  by  acts  of  Congress.  Let  us  now  see 
what  the  fathers  said  on  that  subject ;  and,  particularly,  let  us 
observe  what  they  did.  I  must  insist  on  the  point  of  examining 
into  what  the  elder  men  of  the  Republic  did,  for  this  reason :  those 
men  made,  pondered,  studied,  adopted,  the  Constitution.  They  had 
great  veneration  for  it ;  and  all  of  them  who  acted  under  it,  whether 
in  legislative,  executive,  or  judicial  capacity,  took  a  solemn  oath  to 
suppott  and  not  to  violate  it.  If  they  were  honest  (and  I  think  that 


ON   THE    SLAVERY   QUESTION.  401 

we  will  scarcely  dispute  it)  then,  if  they  did  violate  the  Constitution, 
they  were  ignorant  men,  and  did  not  understand  their  own  work  as 
well  as  we  sages  here  assembled.  I  think  the  characteristic  modesty 
of  this  House  will  scarcely  assert  the  latter  proposition ! 

Passing  by  many  facts  in  our  political  history  which  threw  some 
light  on  the  subject  before,  let  us  pause  a  moment  at  the  year  1820. 
Not  long  before  this  time,  we  had  passed  through  our  second  war 
with  Great  Britain.  At  that  time,  I  began  to  look  out  upon  the 
political  affairs  of  the  world  with  that  interest  which  both  novelty 
and  importance  would  inspire  in  all  young  minds.  I  read  the  argu 
ments  in  the  Missouri  case  with  a  great  deal  of  care.  Although  the 
sentiment  of  the  country  was  generally  against  me,  I  then  formed 
the  opinion  that  Missouri  had  a  right  to  come  into  the  Union  with 
Slavery.  I  thought  that  right  was  founded  upon  the  treaty  stipula 
tions  by  which  that  Territory  was  acquired.  The  treaty,  ratified  as 
it  was  by  the  Senate,  two-thirds  of  that  body  concurring,  became,  in 
the  language  of  the  Constitution,  the  "supreme  law  of  the  land." 
What  was  Louisiana  when  we  acquired  her?  Anybody  who  knows 
the  history  of  the  times  will  know  what  she  was.  A  little  settle 
ment,  old,  it  is  true,  but  so  small  in  population  that  it  would  be 
made  by  the  Yankees  of  this  day  in  a  very  few  months.  What  was 
the  reason  of  that  aquisition?  All  who  have  looked  into  the  cur 
rent  history  of  the  West,  from  1790  up  to  about  1803,  know  that 
Western  men,  the  ancestors  of  those  who  now  boast  so  much  of  our 
loyalty  to  the  Union,  were  threatening  to  break  off  from  those  now 
living  east  of  the  Alleghanies,  and  to  make  an  independent  confeder 
ation  west  of  it,  and  to  force  free  trade  to  the  sea  through  the  mouth 
of  the  Mississippi.  Jefferson  was  alarmed,  and  the  whole  country 
was  alarmed,  as  you  will  see  if  you  read  the  debates  of  1802  and 
1803,  in  and  out  of  Congress,  while  this  matter  was  going  on. 
Everybody  West  demanded  that  we  should  go  into  war  with  Spain, 
because  she  would  not  let  us  trade  through  the  mouth  of  the  Missis 
sippi  ;  and  most  eloquent  and  impressive  speeches  were  made, 
enforcing  the  idea  that  there  was  danger  of  a  Western  secession, 
unless  trade  was  made  easy  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  through  the  Mis 
sissippi  river.  Mr.  Jefferson,  without  any  constitutional  authority 
whatever,  as  he  himself  thought  and  openly  avowed,  authorized  our 
Ministers  in  France  to  negotiate  for  the  purchase  of  Louisiana, 
which  had  then  but  recently  fallen  into  the  hands  of  France.  It 
was  to  avoid  war  that  it  was  done.  That  was  the  motive.  It  seems 
27 


402  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

by  the  subsequent  purchases  of  Florida,  and  more  recently  of  Cali 
fornia  and  New  Mexico,  that  there  was  authority  for  acquisition  all 
the  while  lurking  in  the  treaty-making  and  war-making  powers. 

I  doubt  very  much,  Mr.  Clerk,  whether  the  First  Consul,  that 
Little  Corporal  who  was  in  command  in  France  at  that  time,  would 
have  ever  signed  a  treaty  which  abrogated  any  right  that  the  people 
of  the  ceded  territory  then  had.  We  know  that  when  the  treaty  was 
completed,  it  has  been  always  said,  and  I  believe  it,  that  Napoleon 
refused  to  put  his  signature  to  it,  unless  we  agreed  to  admit  the  peo 
ple  of  Louisiana  into  our  confederacy  of  States,  with  all  the  rights 
enjoyed  by  those  who  were  already  in  the  Union.  He  was  in  arms 
for  liberty  then;  he  proclaimed  himself  then  "the  armed  soldier  of 
freedom,"  and  would  not  have  given  up  that  colony,  as  he  called  it, 
for  all  you  could  have  offered  him,  but  that  he  had  no  navy  to  pro 
tect  it.  He  was  at  war  with  England,  and  he  knew  that  England 
with  her  navy  would  take  his  colonies  from  him.  He  was  therefore 
glad  to  get  rid  of  them.  That  Territory  would  have  been  a  point  of 
weakness  to  France  then,  just  as  Canada  would  be  a  point  of  weak 
ness  to  England  now,  if  she  were  in  a  war  with  us.  That  was  Napo 
leon's  idea,  and  that  article  in  the  treaty  which  secured  to  Louisiana 
the  right  to  enter  into  the  Confedercy,  was  inserted  at  the  request  of 
Napoleon,  and,  no  doubt,  at  that  time,  it  showed  his  sincere  admira 
tion  of  our  Government.  He  would  not  sign  the  treaty  till  that 
was  put  in,  in  such  terms  as  ( treaties  being  the  supreme  law  of  the 
land  )  must  prevail  over  any  of  our  notions  of  Slavery.  And  Louis 
iana  and  Missouri  would  not  have  been  admitted  at  that  day  without 
that  clause  in  the  treaty,  although  I  think,  without  such  treaty,  they 
would  in  time  have  been  admitted  without  it.  I  do  not  say  that  it 
was  the  policy  or  the  wish  of  the  founders  of  the  Republic  to  dis 
turb  the  relations  of  property  that  existed  when  they  acquired  any 
territory.  They  left  Louisiana  just  as  it  was ;  so  they  did  with  Flor 
ida,  in  1819.  Slaves  were  property  there  when  we  acquired  that 
territory,  and  they  remained  property;  and  Florida  came  into  the 
Union  with  Slavery.  Arkansas  was  admitted  in  the  same  way. 
But  in  that  part  of  the  country  comprehended  within  the  Louisiana 
purchase  lying  north  of  latitude  36°  30',  covered  by  what  is  called 
the  Missouri  compromise  line,  there  was  no  population — no  white 
men,  no  slaves,  no  property  to  be  affected ;  and  therefore  Slavery 
could  properly  be  prohibited  there.  That  was  the  view  which  the 
men  of  1820  took  of  that  subject.  That  has  been  called  a  compro- 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  403 

mise;  and  the  legislation  of  1850  has  been  called  a  compromise. 
Why  I  know  not.  I  apprehend  that  none  of  the  men  of  that  day 
voted  for  a  law  which  they  believed  compromised  away  or  violated 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  Certainly  no  Congress 
should  be  lightly  charged  with  such  horrible  infidelity  to  themselves 
and  their  posterity.  They  never  thought  they  were  violating  the 
Constitution,  and  compromising  it,  when  they  passed  the  Missouri 
restriction.  They  maintained  their  position  of  justice  and  fidelity  to 
compacts.  The  Constitution  had  declared  that  that  Constitution,  and 
the  treaties  and  laws  made  under  it,  should  be  the  supreme  law  of 
the  land,  overruling  all  other  laws.  That  omnipotent  treaty-making 
power  was  not  trusted  to  anything  short  of  two-thirds  of  that  great 
constitutional  body,  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  It  was  safe  to 
trust  it  to  two-thirds  of  that  body,  representing  all  the  sovereign 
States  of  the  Union. 

I  have  attempted  to  explain,  Mr.  Clerk,  that  we  acquired 
territory,  that  Slavery  existed  in  it  as  an  institution,  and  that 
there  never  was  any  exercise  of  the  powers  of  the  Government 
to  destroy  that  local  institution,  or,  it  you  please,  that  right.  The 
whole  of  the  Louisiana  purchase,  so  far  as  Slavery  was  concerned, 
was  left  just  as  it  was  acquired  until  1821,  when  Slavery  was  prohib 
ited  north  of  36°  30'.  Whether  any  slaves  were  held  in  the  country 
to  which  the  inhibition  applied,  is  not  material,  at  this  day,  to  decide. 
My  impression  is,  there  were  none.  However,  the  men  of  1820-'21 
understood  all  about  the  early  settlements  in  the  "Louisiana  pur 
chase,"  and  the  character  of  those  settlements  also,  much  better  than 
we  can  be  supposed  to  understand  them  after  a  lapse  of  forty  years. 
We  know  that  the  men  of  that  day  declared  that  the  treaty  by  which 
we  acquired  that  territory  contained  provisions  by  which  we  were 
bound,  its  obligations  being  paramount  to  all  law  and  every  other 
obligation.  They  admitted  Missouri,  as  I  think  she  would  have 
been  admitted  if  there  had  been  no  treaty;  perhaps  it  might  not 
have  been  within  a  year  or  two,  but  eventually  I  believe  she  would 
have  been  admitted  without  the  aid  of  treaty  stipulations. 

Now,  sir,  who  were  they,  disputing  at  the  time  about  this  ques 
tion  of  the  benefits  of  Slavery,  the  disadvantages  of  Slavery,  the 
evils  of  Slavery,  looking  at  it  in  all  its  aspects,  social,  moral,  politi 
cal?  They  were  the  men  of  1820;  they  were  men  who  had  just 
emerged  from  that  struggle  with  Great  Britain,  second  in  importance, 
as  they  thought,  only  to  that  in  which  they  conquered  our  independ- 


404  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

ence;  they  rejoiced  that  they  had  come  out  of  it  with  reputation  to 
the  country.  Their  hearts  were  American.  Whether  Democrats, 
Republicans  or  Federalists,  they  were  all  Americans ;  all  party  lines 
had  been  obliterated.  We  know  that  the  period  to  which  I  refer 
was  called  the  halcyon  period  of  the  Republic.  God  knows  it  was  a 
happy  day  in  the  public  affairs,  compared  with  the  present.  What 
did  they  do?  Just  what  we  should  do  to-morrow,  if  we  were  like 
them.  They  admitted  a  slave  State  because  they  were  bound  to  do 
it,  either  by  treaty  obligations  or  by  those  fraternal  relations  that 
must  exist  between  the  States ;  and  they  said  that  Slavery  should 
never  exist  in  the  territory  north  of  Missouri. 

You  of  the  South  insist  that  the  inhibition  of  Slavery  in  the 
territory  north  of  the  State  of  Missouri  was  unconstitutional.  Is  it  to 
be  supposed  that  the  men  of  those  days  did  not  understand  their  con 
stitutional  obligations?  There  were  Mr.  Monroe,  and  John  Quincy 
Adams,  and  William  H.  Crawford — my  Georgia  friends  can  under 
stand  who  I  mean  when  I  speak  of  him — a  man,  in  my  memory, 
quite  as  illustrious  as  any  citizen  that  has  ever  lived  in  that  great 
State.  He  was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  the  Cabinet  of  Mr. 
Monroe.  There  was  Mr.  Smith  Thompson,  afterwards  Judge  of  the 
Supreme  Court — a  man  whom  everybody  who  knew  him  will  now 
remember  as  one  possessing  great  learning  in  matters  of  constitu 
tional  law,  as  well  as  in  the  common  and  civil  law;  a  jurist,  in  the 
best  sense  of  the  word;  an  old-fashioned  man,  in  the  best  sense  of 
the  word;  a  man  of  large  and  well-furnished  head,  and  sound,  patri 
otic  heart.  He  was  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  Mr.  McLean  was  not 
at  that  time  a  member  of  the  Cabinet.  It  remained  for  Gen.  Jack 
son  to  bring  the  Postmaster-General  into  the  Cabinet,  but  he  was  in 
familiar  association  with  that  Cabinet.  But  who  was  he,  I  ask  you, 
whose  only  function  it  was,  at  that  time,  to  give  constitutional  law  to 
the  Cabinet?  Who  the  Attorney-General,  who  has  nothing  else  to 
do  but  that,  or  would  have  nothing  else  to  do,  if  we  had  not 
imposed  extra-official  duties  upon  him  ?  William  Wirt  was  the  man, 
a  Virginian.  I  presume  my  honorable  friend  from  Virginia,  who  sits 
before  me  now  [MR.  BOCOCK],  would  have  had  some  doubt  about  the 
propriety  of  his  own  opinion  upon  legal  and  constitutional  points,  if 
Mr.  Wirt  had  differed  from  him. 

John  C.  Calhoun,  of  South  Carolina,  was  also  a  member  of  that 
Cabinet.  This  very  question,  the  power  of  Congress  to  prohibit 
Slavery  in  the  Territories,  was  submitted  to  that  Cabinet.  Was  Mr. 


ON    THE    SLAVERY   QUESTION.  405 

Monroe  an  Abolitionist?  Doubtless,  like  others  of  his  compeers  of 
that  period,  he  did  entertain  the  opinion,  that  wherever  the  white 
man  could  labor  with  advantage,  it  would  be  better  to  prohibit  Slavery; 
but  that  was  not  the  question  submitted  to  him — him  of  the  Revolu 
tionary  era;  him,  an  honored  and  influential  patriot,  from  the  time  of 
our  independence  up  to  the  constitutional  era ;  him,  a  cotemporary  of 
the  Constitution  itself,  who  knew  all  the  motives  and  reasons,  the 
pros  and  cons,  why  this  power  was  put  in,  and  that  was  left  out,  of 
that  instrument — which,  as  was  eloquently  remarked  the  other  day,  is 
so  delicate  a  piece  of  machinery,  that,  if  it  be  deranged  in  a  single 
spring,  the  whole  falls  into  chaos.  This  man,  a  cotemporary  of  that 
period,  who  had  studied  that  complex  and  delicate  work,  knew  the 
object  of  the  whole  and  the  function  of  each  of  its  parts — I  ask,  did 
he  not  understand  the  uses  and  design  of  that  work  as  well,  nay, 
much  better,  than  we,  his  degenerate  successors?  That  question,  I 
repeat,  was  submitted  to  his  Cabinet,  not  a  single  member  of  which, 
I  believe,  is  now  alive ;  and  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Adams  is,  that  they 
were  unanimously  of  the  opinion  that  the  bill  prohibiting  Slavery  in 
the  territory  north  of  latitude  36°  30'  was  a  constitutional  law. 

MR.  KEITT,  (in  his  seat) — Mr.  Calhoun  denied  the  statement. 

MR.  CORWIN — I  heard  the  gentleman  from  South  Carolina  make 
that  statement  the  other  day.  I  was  in  the  Senate  when  that  was 
mentioned.  If  my  memory  be  correct,  Mr.  Calhoun  said,  at  that 
time,  he  did  not  remember  that  fact.  But  be  that  as  it  may,  if  Mr. 
Calhoun  at  that  time  had  entertained  the  opinion  that  it  was  not 
within  the  constitutional  competency  of  Congress  to  pass  that  act,  is 
it  likely,  from  the  earnest  nature  and  character  of  the  man,  that  he 
would  not  have  left  on  record  his  protest  against  the  approval  of 
what  he  might  have  deemed  an  unconstitutional  law  ? 

MR.  KEITT — I  will  quote  a  single  word  from  Mr.  Monroe's  testimony. 
It  is  not  quite  so  strong  as  I  thought  it  was,  but  it  is  just  it  should  be  quoted. 
It  is: 

"That  the  proposed  restriction  of  Territories  which  are  to  be  admitted 
into  the  Union,  if  not  in  direct  violation  of  the  Constitution,  is  repugnant  to 
its  principles." 

MR.  CORWIN — I  have  not  brought  myself  to  the  conclusion  that 
Mr.  Monroe  put  his  name  to  a  bill  that  he  believed  unconstitutional. 

From  the  history  of  the  times  to  which  I  now  refer,  we  should 
all  learn  to  tolerate  difference  of  opinion.  Mr.  Jefferson  thought  a 


406  SPEECHES    OP   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

great  public  necessity  obliged  him  to  acquire  Louisiana,  without  any 
warrant  in  the  Constitution  for  that  act.  It  is  not  necessary  now  to 
recur  to  the  historical  facts  of  that  day  which  formed  in  the  mind  of 
Mr.  Jefferson  a  justification  of  that  act.  Louisiana  was  thus 
acquired,  and  all  then  supposed  our  territory  complete.  But  after 
the  war  of  1812  was  ended,  we  found,  or  thought  we  found,  another 
necessity.  Florida  was  a  Spanish  colony.  She  was  our  neighbor, 
our  too  near  neighbor.  Our  race,  our  rapacious  race,  will  not  sub 
mit  to  a  close  proximity  with  any  other  race.  Many  apologies  and 
some  reasons  were  soon  found  why  we  should  own  Florida.  Indians 
abounded  there;  slaves  were  property  there.  It  was  said,  and  I 
believe  with  truth,  that  these  Indians  would  sometimes  steal  or  spirit 
away  the  slaves  of  our  adjoining  States,  or  that  slaves  would  run 
away  into  Florida,  and  fugitive  slave  bills,  as  we  knew,  could  not  be 
enforced  there.  Florida  was  purchased  to  adjust  this  difficulty. 
Slavery  was  lawful  there,  and  the  Government  received  it,  kept  it, 
and  to  this  day  does  not  pretend  to  disturb  Slavery  in  Florida.  It 
may  be  remembered  that  the  legislative  power  of  Congress  over  Ter 
ritories  came  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  as  a 
question  directly  or  incidentally  involved  in  a  case  which  was  brought 
from  that  Territory,  I  think  in  the  year  1828.  The  whole  court  then 
agreed  that  Congress  alone  could  legislate  for  Territories.  It  should 
be  borne  in  mind  that  this  was  the  same  court,  but  not  the  same 
judges,  which  decided  the  famous  case  of  Dred  Scott.  What  did 
Mexico  say  when  she  ceded  territory  to  us  ?  She  ceded  it  to  the 
United  States;  not  to  South  Carolina,  or  to  Georgia,  or  Massachu 
setts;  but  to  the  United  States.  She  said  that  the  right  to  make 
laws  for  this  people  is  now  transferred  to  the  United  States.  The 
local  laws  and  regulations  in  all  such  cases  remain  in  full  force,  except 
where  they  conflict  with  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  The 
deed  of  cession  was  made  to  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  and 
that  Government,  by  consequence,  has,  by  virtue  of  treaty,  the 
power  to  control  the  territory.  I  have  given  you  the  opinion  of 
Chief  Justice  Marshall.  There  are  other  decisions  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  which  I  may  hereafter  refer  to,  recognizing  Congress  as  the 
only  legislative  power  which  can  rightfully  make  laws  for  a  Territory, 
until  that  Territory  becomes  a  State. 

Now,  let  me  look  a  little  to  our  opinions — the  opinions  of 
learned  gentlemen  elected  to  represent  the  people.  It  was  observed 
by  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi,  that,  in  the  "compromise"  of 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  407 

1850,  as  he  will  continue  to  call  it,  the  power  to  make  laws  for  the 
Territories  was  abandoned.  Now,  if  any  one  will  look  into  the  laws 
of  1850,  organizing  the  Territories  of  New  Mexico  and  Utah,  they 
will  find  that,  while  they  organized  a  Legislative  Council  and  a  lower 
House  of  Representatives,  in  each  of  those  organic  laws  they  pro 
vide,  "that  the  laws  made  by  the  Territorial  Legislature  should  be 
returned  to  Congress,  and  if  disapproved  by  Congress,  should  be 
null  and  void."  So  far  from  surrendering  this  great  principle,  now 
become  established  by  judicial  decision  as  well  as  by  the  laws  of 
Congress,  Congress  expressly  retained  the  power  to  annul  the  laws 
of  the  Territory.  Sir,  I  listened  to  the  debates  upon  those  measures 
of  1850  for  many  months.  Mr.  Webster  was,  I  think,  very  unjustly 
condemned  by  a  portion  of  the  people  of  his  own  State,  because, 
they  said,  he  surrendered  this  great  right.  I  have  lived  too  long  to 
be  much  amazed  at  anything;  but  I  have  been  utterly  astonished 
that  it  should  have  been  asserted  by  any  one  that  either  of  the  illus 
trious  men  who  figured  in  that  discussion — Clay  or  Webster — ever 
surrendered  the  power  of  Congress  to  prohibit  Slavery  in  the  Terri 
tories  of  the  United  States.  They  declared,  in  their  speeches,  that 
they  believed  they  had  that  power;  but  that  the  territory  coming 
from  Mexico  was  free,  and  that  no  power  on  earth,  except  Congress, 
could  take  Slavery  there,  unless  the  law-making  power  of  that  terri 
tory  had  planted  it  there  before  we  acquired  it.  All  the  courts, 
State  and  Federal,  up  to  1854,  had  determined  that  Slavery  is  the 
creature  of  local  law,  or  long  local  usage  recognized  as  lawful,  which 
was  but  another  formula  for  the  expression  of  that  principle. 

[At  this  point,    Mr.  Corwin  gave  way  for  a  motion  to  adjourn]. 
TUESDAY,  JANUARY  24,  1860. 

MR.  CLERK  :  I  ought  to  apologize  to  the  House  and  to  myself 
for  suffering  myself  to  be  beguiled  into  this  debate  without  any 
preparation  whatever.  I  ought  not  to  have  been  drawn  into  this 
discussion  without  some  preparation.  When  Sir  Walter  Scott  was 
inquired  of,  why  he  did  not  write  the  Life  of  Napoleon  in  one  vol 
ume  instead  of  three,  he  replied,  that  he  had  not  the  time.  If  I  had 
known  that  I  should  have  been  brought  to  discuss  the  very  questions 
that  have  been  in  my  mind  since  I  took  the  floor  yesterday,  or  that  I 
should  have  said  anything  to  the  House,  except  merely  call  its  atten 
tion  to  the  necessity  of  electing  a  Speaker,  I  certainly  would  have 


408  SPEECHES    OP   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

said  in  one  hour  what  required  two  hours  to  accomplish  yesterday. 
I  wish  now,  before  I  proceed,  having  collected  myself  somewhat 
during  the  intervening  time  since  the  adjournment,  to  ask  the  gentle 
man  from  Virginia  [MR.  GARNETT]  whether  I  understood  him  yester 
day  to  say  that  Mr.  Jefferson,  at  some  time  in  his  life,  had  expressed 
the  opinion  that  the  Missouri  restriction  was  unconstitutional,  or  only 
that  it  was  inexpedient. 

MR.  GARNETT — Both. 

MR.  CORWIN — When  I  conceded  that  such  was  his  opinion,  I  did 
not  mean  to  say  that  Mr.  Jefferson  had  said  at  any  time  that  the  law 
passed,  restricting  Slavery  beyond  a  certain  line  of  latitude,  was 
unconstitutional.  I  did  know  that  he  had  somewhere  expressed  the 
opinion  that  it  was  highly  inexpedient.  If  such  an  opinion  as  that 
suggested  by  the  gentleman  from  Virginia  was  ever  expressed  by 
Mr.  Jefferson,  I  do  not  know  it.  That  he  declared  the  acquisition  of 
the  Territory  of  Louisiana  to  be  without  warrant  of  Constitution,  is 
a  matter  of  such  public  political  history  that  none  of  us  are  ignorant 
of  it.  But  I  do  not  mean  to  concede  the  point  that  Mr.  Jefferson 
had  expressly  declared  the  Missouri  act  unconstitutional. 

Now,  Mr.  Clerk,  let  us  recall  what  I  intended  to  present  to  the 
world — for  we  always  speak  to  mankind  when  we  speak  in  Congress, 
and  to  all  posterity,  and  to  all  time  back  of  us,  if  it  can  be  made  to 
hear.  I  have  endeavored  to  apologize  to  my  friends  upon  the  other 
side  of  the  House  for  the  very  erroneous  opinions,  .as  they  call  them, 
of  the  so-called  Republican  party.  I  only  want  to  say  to  them  now, 
that  we  must  be  excused  if  we  take  the  same  ground  with  the 
fathers  of  the  Revolution  and  the  fathers  of  the  Constitution ;  and  that 
whatever  may  be  the  opinions  of  the  men  on  that  side  of  the  House, 
we  cannot  find  it  in  our  consciences  to  accuse  ourselves  of  treason 
while  we  advocate  the  doctrines  of  Washington,  of  Jefferson,  of 
Madison,  and  of  Monroe.  We  may  be  wrong  upon  the  point  of 
law ;  we  may  be  wrong  about  the  power  of  Congress ;  but  about  the 
policy  of  restricting  Slavery,  we  being  wrong,  those  great  men  were 
wrong.  If  they  were  right,  beyond  peradventure  the  Democratic 
party  are  wrong.  That  was  the  view  which  I  wished  to  present  to 
my  fellow-citizens  assembled  here — to  my  fellow-members — by  way 
of  excusing  us  from  listening  hereafter  to  charges  of  treason,  mur 
der,  robbery  and  arson,  which  have  been  charged  upon  the  whole 
Republican  party.  Why,  the  arguments  of  some  of  these  gentle- 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  409 

men  on  the  other  side  would  indicate  that,  in  their  opinion,  as  a  matter 
of  criminal  law,  every  one  of  the  Republicans  could  be  convicted  of 
being  at  Harper's  Ferry,  with  a  pike  in  his  hand,  pushing  it  into  the 
bosom  of  a  Southern  gentleman.  [Laughter].  Sir,  it  made  me  feel 
a  little  unhappy  at  first,  until  I  found  that  all  this  was  said  in  joke ; 
yet  the  world,  which  is  listening  to  this  debate,  do  not  understand 
this.  Gentlemen  tell  us  here  that  they  mean  nothing  personal  by 
these  remarks.  "It  is  true,"  say  these  gentlemen,  "that  you  do 
commit  treason,  you  do  commit  arson,  murder,  and  all  these  crimes, 
but  you  do  it  in  the  most  honorable  and  honest  way."  [Laughter]. 
That  is  satisfactory  to  me. 

Sir,  I  endeavored  to  show  yesterday,  by  reference  to  the  general 
history  of  the  country,  that  Mr.  Seward  had  said  nothing,  that 
Helper  had  said  nothing,  more  offensive  than  Washington.  I  do  not 
know  what  is  in  Helper's  book,  except  by  report.  I  was  written  to 
by  one  of  my  constituents  for  a  copy  of  that  new  book,  about  which 
he  had  heard  so  much.  I  had  been  listening  to  this  argument  about 
treason,  and  I  said  to  my  constituent  that  I  had  no  copy,  except 
one,  and  that  it  would  be  dangerous  for  it  to  go  through  the  post 
office  with  my  frank.  I  should  be  afraid  that  it  would  be  brought 
up  as  testimony  against  me,  under  an  indictment  by  some  court  in 
Virginia,  for  being  an  accessory  after  the  fact,  by  sending  Helper's'book 
under  my  frank  to  Greene  county,  Ohio.  And  that  is  not  all. 
There  would  be  the  evidence  that  I  nominated  my  colleague  [MR. 
SHERMAN]  and  voted  for  him.  I  hope  gentlemen  will  see  the  deli 
cacy  of  my  situation.  I  have  much  feeling  on  this  subject.  I  have 
a  wife  and  children,  and  they  do  not  want  me  hung  for  voting  for 
my  worthy  colleague.  [Laughter.]  It  would  not  be  agreeable  to 
them.  [Renewed  laughter.] 

I  think  it  was  shown  yesterday,  by  the  references  which  I  made, 
that  nothing  had  been  said  by  Mr.  Seward  which  could  be  construed 
as  offensive  to  the  South  as  these  declarations  of  Jefferson,  which  are 
known  by  heart  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  entire 
Union.  Now,  I  wish  to  address  to  gentlemen  on  the  other  side 
of  the  House  one  or  two  suggestions  upon  a  question  of  logic  and 
fair  reason.  They  say  that  Mr.  Seward,  being  the  head  and  leader 
of  the  Republican  party — against  my  protestations,  they  constantly 
deny  me  that  honor  [laughter] — had  proclaimed  at  Rochester,  in 
general  terms,  that  between  forced  labor  and  free  labor  there  neces 
sarily  would  be  some  collision ;  that  some  conflict  would  go  on  between 


410  SPEECHES    OP   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

them;  and  that,  in  consequence  of  that  doctrine,  John  Brown  deter 
mined  to  murder  somebody  at  Harper's  Ferry.  Now,  do  they  sup 
pose  that  John  Brown  had  not  read  Jefferson's  "Notes  on  Virginia," 
and  all  other  things  which  Jefferson  had  written  about  Slavery?  Do 
they  suppose  he  had  not  seen  the  declaration  of  Washington, 
that  if  there  were  any  way  by  which  Slavery  could  be  abolished,  he 
would  render  to  it  his  cordial  co-operation  ?  Do  you  suppose  he  had 
not  seen  that?  Do  you  suppose  he  had  not  seen  the  debates  in  the 
Convention,  in  which  Slavery  is  denounced  as  an  enormous  evil  lead 
ing  step  by  step,  as  certainly  and  as  steadily  as  the  step  of  time,  to 
a  consummation  as  fatal  as  death  ?  Do  you  suppose  John  Brown 
had  not  read  all  these  things  in  his  solitude  among  the  mountains  of 
New  York,  where,  twenty  years  ago,  he  says,  he  first  conceived  the 
idea  of  invading  one  of  the  Southern  States  and  carrying  off  its 
slaves?  Do  you  suppose  he  had  not  pondered  upon  these  things, 
and  prayed  over  them — for  he  was  a  praying  man,  as  all  enthu 
siasts  are?  He  was  a  brave  man,  as  all  stern  enthusiasts  are;  and  it 
was  because  he  thought  this  enterprise,  the  offspring  of  his  gloomy 
imagination,  was  consecrated  by  the  approbation  of  Jefferson  and 
Washington,  that,  as  he  sometimes  said,  he  believed  the  arms  of  the 
Almighty  upheld  him,  he  was  encompassed  about  by  the  Angels  of 
the  Lord. 

Is  all  this  to  be  attributed  to  a  declaration  of  Mr.  Seward,  in 
reference  to  a  conflict  between  slave  and  free  labor?  I  appeal  to 
gentlemen,  if  they  could  trace  back  Brown's  conduct  at  Harper's 
Ferry  to  any  source  out  of  his  own  solitary  meditations,  whatever 
others  might  have  stated  ot  their  opinions,  whether  it  is  not  more 
rational  to  trace  the  germ  of  that  conduct  to  those  writings,  speeches 
and  letters  of  your  own  great  men  of  the  South  ?  They  were  great 
men ;  they  were  heroes.  They  were  the  great  men  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  great  men  of  the  world ;  and,  notwithstanding  you 
have  changed  your  opinion  on  the  subject  of  Slavery,  and  made  it 
contrary  to  theirs,  yet  their  names  and  their  fame,  and  their  opin 
ions,  will  be  engraved  upon  the  pages  of  history  when  those  of  us 
of  this  date  shall  be  buried  in  profound  oblivion.  [Applause  upon 
the  floor  and  in  the  galleries.]  It  is  wonderful  that  the  talent,  inge 
nuity,  and  eloquence  of  this  discussion  should  have  come  to  such 
conclusions.  Shall  our  minds  be  fastened  upon  these  flimsy  pre 
tences,  when  we  know  there  was  matter  enough  in  the  writings  and 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  411 

speeches  of  the  foremost  men  of  the  world  to  stimulate  a  mind  like 
John  Brown's  into  frantic  fanaticism? 

But  it  is  said  we  are  accessories  after  the  fact  I  ask  gentlemen 
if  they  have  not  attached  too  much  importance  to  the  Helper  book  ? 
When  Thomas  Paine  was  indicted  in  England,  Attorney  General 
McDonald,  I  believe,  well  known  in  forensic  history,  gave  him  some 
notice  of  the  fact  that  he  was  to  be  tried  for  libel  upon  the  British 
Government  in  the  publication  of  his  pamphlet,  "The  Rights  of 
Man."  A  friend  of  Paine  advised  him  to  go  over  immediately  and 
make  some  compromise  with  the  Government.  "No, "said  he, 
"that  indictment  is  an  advertisement,  and  one  hundred  thousand  cop 
ies  of  that  pamphlet  will  be  circulated  in  three  weeks."  And  so  it 
happened.  Those  one  hundred  thousand  copies  would  not  have 
seen  the  light,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  indiscreet  conduct  of  the 
then  Attorney  General  of  the  British  Cabinet.  So  such  matters 
work  out ;  and  so  it  must  ever  be  in  a  country  where  principles  are 
free,  and  speech  and  press  are  free.  While  on  this  subject,  let  me 
say  what,  I  think,  will  be  agreed  to  by  every  considerate  man  in  the 
House  and  out  of  it.  Suppose  all  of  the  two  hundred  and  thirty- 
seven  gentlemen  here  had  met  upon  some  concern  of  great  interest 
to  us  personally.  Suppose  that  some  man  was  proposed  to  dis 
charge  a  certain  duty  for  us,  and  it  was  known  that  this  gentleman 
had  said  or  done  something  which  might  possibly  be  an  objection  to 
him  for  the  discharge  of  the  duty  to  be  assigned  to  him.  Any  man 
who  was  a  friend  of  his  would  have  taken  him  aside  (as  the  gentle- 
'man  from  Missouri  might  have  done),  and  said:  "Now  Mr.  Sher 
man,  you  have  been  nominated  by  a  highly-respectable  gentleman 
from  Ohio."  [Laughter.]  That  is  what  I  would  have  said.  Then 
he  would  have  gone  on:  "I  should  have  no  doubts  about  voting 
for  you ;  but  I  understand  you  have  recommended  a  book  which 
teaches  insurrection  and  rebellion  in  the  slave  States.  How  did  you 
come  to  do  it?"  Mr.  Sherman  would  have  taken  that  gentleman  by 
the  hand  and  said:  "Sir,  a  gentleman  on  this  floor  from  New  York 
came  to  me,  while  I  was  hastily  doing  some  business  at  my  desk, 
and  told  me  it  was  desirable  to  collate  certain  parts  of  a  book  called 
'Helper's  Impending  Crisis,'  and  to  publish  them  in  a  cheap  pamph 
let,  which  pamphlet  was  to  have  a  political  effect" — that  is,  to  illus 
trate,  I  suppose,  the  doctrines  of  the  Republican  party.  I  suppose 
that  is  what  they  all  understood.  "I  asked  him,"  Mr.  Sherman 
would  say,  "is  it  all  proper,  all  right?  Said  my  friend,  'certainly., 


412  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

Then,  without  looking  at  the  book,  and  knowing  nothing  about  it,  I 
authorized  him  to  put  my  name  to  a  recommendation  of  a  book  yet 
to  be  written.  When  I  saw  the  work  I  did  not  endorse  it.  I  am 
sorry  that  I  was  thoughtlessly  and  unwittingly  brought  into  this  rec 
ommendation  of  it.  I  never  intended  to  endorse  such  a  book.  The 
gentleman  from  New  York  told  me  it  was  all  right." 

Sir,  I  do  think,  under  that  explanation,  the  gentleman  from 
Missouri  would  have  taken  his  seat,  and  said,  "After  all  stated  in 
the  New  York  Herald,  there  is  nothing  against  Mr.  Sherman,  except 
that  he  acted  unadvisedly,  for  which  he  is  now  sorry."  He  would  not, 
if  he  had  been  his  political  friend,  have  risen  and  menaced  him  with 
a  criminal  prosecution.  Criminal  conduct  is  always  to  be  found  in 
the  intention  of  men.  I  subscribe  to  a  newspaper,  to  be  printed  for 
six  months  or  a  year ;  I  put  my  name  to  the  subscription  and  recom 
mend  it.  It  turns  out  that  the  editor  is  a  rascal  and  a  blackguard. 
Am  I  to  be  held  responsible  for  what  is  published  in  that  paper?  I 
think  the  argumentum  ad  hominem  might  put  some  gentlemen  on  the 
other  side  in  a  very  odd  position.  The  gentlemen  from  Ohio  recom 
mended  the  publication  of  a  book — not  a  book  which  had  been 
printed,  but  a  book  to  be  made  out  of  another,  which  he  never  saw 
in  his  life  until  this  resolution  of  the  gentleman  from  Missouri  was 
offered.  Well,  gentlemen  say  there  is  nothing  to  stain  Mr.  Sher 
man's  honor;  and  yet,  honored  as  he  is,  and  unstained  as  he  is  in 
that  particular  repect,  if  he  should  be  elected  as  Speaker  of  this 
House,  it  would  be  a  burning  shame ;  the  Union  might  be  dissolved, 
and  civil  war  take  place. 

MR.  MCCLERNAND — Who  said  that? 

MR.  CLARK,  of  Missouri — I  ask  the  gentleman  this  question :  Do  you 
assert  that  I  even  said  so  ? 

MR.  CORWIN — I  was  arguing  upon  the  general  tenor  of  the 
speeches  on  the  other  side  of  the  House. 

MR.  CLARK,  of  Missouri — I  understood  the  gentleman  to  say  that  I  so 
asserted. 

MR.  CORWIN — No,  sir,  not  at  all.  I  do  not  think  anybody 
stated  that,  in  terms. 

MR.  CLARK,  of  Missouri — Has  anybody  upon  this  floor  said  so  ? 

MR.  CORWIN — No,  sir.     I  said  you  argued  that  civil  war  must 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  413 

come  thus:  the  election  of  Mr.  Sherman — that  was  the  first  step; 
the  next  will  be  the  election  of  Mr.  Seward ;  and  then,  war. 

MR.  CLARK,  of  Missouri — The  gentleman  never  heard  me  assert  that. 

MR.  CORWIN — No,  sir ;  it  was  said  by  other  gentlemen  on  that 
side.     You  may  not  have  heard  it. 

MR.  KEITT  (in  his  seat) — Plenty  of  them,  often  and  again. 

MR.  CORWIN — I  do  not  certainly  misrepresent  gentlemen  in  what 
I  have  said.  Now,  what  is  to  follow?  We,  the  Republican  party, 
if  we  can,  shall  certainly  elect  these  men,  or  somebody  just  like 
them.  I  wish  to  know  what  the  casus  belli  is  to  be,  before  we  set 
out ;  but  all  you  can  say,  all  the  world  can  say,  will  never  prevent 
any  freeman  in  any  free  State — or  slave  State,  I  hope,  either — from 
exercising  the  right  of  suffrage  just  when  and  as  he  pleases.  No 
menace  from  any  man,  or  a  number  of  men  living  at  my  own  door 
in  Ohio,  I  trust,  will  ever  avail  to  induce  me  to  surrender  that  great 
inalienable  right,  or  shrink  with  a  craven  timidity  from  its  free  exercise. 
I  can  assure  those  who  threaten  disunion,  because  the  North  or  the 
West  shall  chance  to  vote  for  whom  they  deem  proper  for  President, 
that  no  more  fatal  mistake  ever  entered  into  the  head  of  a  maniac, 
than  the  supposition  that  threats  from  any  or  all  other  quarters  of 
the  United  States  will  prevent  or  deter  a  freemen  in  the  North  or 
West  from  voting  according  to  the  dictate  of  his  own  unbiased  sense 
of  duty  to  himself  and  his  country. 

Mr.  Clerk,  yesterday  I  intended  to  bring  before  the  House  the 
constitutional  doctrines  held  by  the  Republican  party,  and  compare 
them  with  the  doctrines  held  by  the  founders  of  the  Republic,  and 
thus  endeavor  to  prove,  that  when  we  delare  that  Congress,  under 
our  Constitution,  has  the  power  to  prohibit  Slavery  in  the  Territories 
of  the  United  States,  before  they  become  States,  we  propose  noth 
ing  which  is  new,  either  in  the  principles  or  policy  of  those  who 
founded  this  Government ;  and  that  the  practice  and  policy  of  this 
Government,  up  to  the  year  1854,  is  in  accordance  with  the  doctrines 
now  held  by  the  Republican  party  of  this  day.  I  am  sure  that  the 
history  of  the  Government,  in  all  its  departments — legislative,  judi 
cial  and  executive — will  sustain  me  in  this  position.  If  so,  then  I 
shall  feel  authorized  to  inquire  of  gentlemen  on  the  other  side,  by 
what  authority  you  dare  to  denounce  us  as  holding  principles  fatal  to 
the  peace  or  interests  or  liberties  of  the  people  ?  Your  apology  will 
be,  public  opinion  is  changed;  the  world  has  changed  its  opinions 


414  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

touching  Slavery.  I  admit  that  public  opinion  may  have  changed  in 
the  South,  and  public  opinion  in  the  North  may  have  been  modified 
somewhat.  The  public  opinion  of  the  world,  however,  against  Slav 
ery  is  stronger  now  than  it  was  sixty  years  ago.  I  know  from  the 
declaration  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  himself,  that  his  mind  did  undergo  a 
change  in  respect  to  some-  constitutional  points,  and  in  respect  to  the 
propriety  and  morality  of  the  institution  of  Slavery.  But  do  not 
gentlemen  know  that  ever  since  the  time  when  Jefferson  said,  when 
he  contemplated  Slavery  in  this  country,  he  "trembled  when  he 
remembered  that  God  is  just;"  that  ever  since  the  time  when  he 
declared  that  "nothing  was  more  certainly  written  in  the  book  of 
fate,  than  that  the  black  man  one  day  would  be  free;"  that  from  that 
very  time,  and  even  before  that  time,  the  whole  moral  sense  of  the 
highest  minds  of  England  had  been  running  in  the  very  direction  of 
abolitionism?  We  know,  now,  that  the  slave  trade  never  was  legal 
ized  by  any  people  upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  We  learn  it  from 
the  great  debates  in  the  British  House  of  Commons,  when  the  slave 
trade  was  prohibited  under  the  auspices  of  Wilberforce,  Granville 
Sharp,  of  Pitt  and  Fox ;  we  know  that  the  license  given  by  Elizabeth 
to  Hawkins  expressly  forbade  him  from  bringing  a  negro  from  Africa 
' '  by  force. "  We  know  that  the  statute  of  George  II. ,  which  was  said 
to  legalize  that  traffic,  forbid  that  any  African  should  be  brought  away 
from  Africa  except  by  his  own  consent.  England  is  not  so  much  to 
blame  as  we  may  suppose  for  initiating  the  slave  trade,  though  it  is 
true  that  she  and  all  Europe  acquiesced  in  it. 

Mr.  Clerk,  we  know  very  well  that,  in  the  midst  of  that  univer 
sal  excitement  of  the  public  mind  which  prevailed  during  the  reign 
of  Elizabeth  and  subsequent  reigns,  touching  the  Protestant  and 
Catholic  religions,  and  the  establishment  of  Protestantism,  when  all 
the  Powers  of  Europe  were  engaged  in  fighting  for  the  success  of 
the  Protestant  or  Catholic  Princes ;  we  know  that  this  affair  of  the 
.slave  trade  was  a  subordinate  matter,  and  passed  unnoticed.  Had 
England  been  in  the  calm  which  she  enjoyed  afterwards  in  the  time 
of  James,  I  very  much  doubt  whether  there  ever  would  have  been  a 
negro  slave  brought  from  the  coast  of  Africa  by  force.  But  it  has 
gone,  and  England,  during  the  last  half  of  the  last  century,  could 
not  boast  of  any  very  great  mind  in  her  Parliament  who  was  not 
opposed  to  the  slave  trade.  And,  as  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi 
well  said  yesterday,  after , having  abolished  the  slave  trade,  the  very 
next  step  was  the  abolition  of  Slavery  in  Jamaica ;  and  I  will  add, 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  415 

with  their  views  of  the  subject,  they  were  right.  Our  crime  is,  that 
our  notions  about  Slavery,  its  morality  and  its  evils,  are  such  as  these 
men  held.  I  do  not  now  speak  of  our  right,  under  the  Constitution,  to 
touch  it  anywhere;  that  I  shall  come  to  by  and  by.  Suppose  we  do 
hold  opinions  touching  the  evils  of  Slavery  in  common  with  the 
greatest  minds  that  have  ever  illustrated  the  history  of  England — the 
greatest  empire,  in  my  judgment,  upon  earth — in  common  with  the 
great  minds  that  founded  this  Republic.  Is  it  fair,  because  we  have 
not  changed,  but  still  adhere  to  those  old  opinions,  to  charge  us  with 
being  reptiles,  traitors  and  serpents  ?  If  it  is,  then  dig  up  from  their 
last  resting-place  the  bones  of  Jefferson,  and  hang  them  up,  as  royal 
hatred  in  England  did  Cromwell's  for  many  a  year.  Go  to  the  sacred 
sarcophagus,  now  in  the  hands  of  the  women  of  this  country,  and 
get  the  bones  of  Washington  to-day,  spit  upon  them,  and  throw 
them  into  the  Potomac.  He  held  the  opinion  that  Slavery  ought  to 
be  abolished  when  it  could  be  done  with  safety  to  both  master  and 
slave.  No  Northern  man  goes  further  than  that.  Gentlemen  will 
find  that  these  things  will  lead  us  into  singular  conclusions  after  a 
while.  I  have  shown  that  those  opinions  were  the  opinions  which 
illustrate  the  history  of  the  world,  and  that  they  were  openly  pro 
claimed  by  Southern  men,  too,  of  whose  greatness  we  all  so  justly 
boast. 

I  endeavored  to  show  yesterday — of  which  I  shall  have  more  to 
say  presently — that  Mr.  Monroe's  administration  had  sanctioned  the 
very  law  which  the  Republican  party  say  shall  be  passed  with  refer 
ence  to  the  Territories ;  and  that  is  all  they  do  say.  I  grant  you  they 
stand  upon  that;  that  is  the  only  thing  which  they  have  ever 
announced  to  the  world  intelligently,  and  as  a  matter  of  law,  and 
doctrine,  and  practice.  It  was  the  departure  from  that  principle 
which  gave  birth  to  the  Republican  party.  I  know  that  in  the  plat 
form  read  here  the  other  day  by  some  gentleman  on  the  other  side, 
there  was  something  said  about  the  inalienable  rights  of  man,  and 
there  was  a  long  quotation  read  from  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence.  Now,  if  it  has  become  a  crime  to  quote  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  pass  a  law  making  it  so,  and  we  will  obey  it.  I  rec 
ollect  that  the  celebrated  John  Randolph  once  told  a  young  friend  of 
mine,  who  was  traveling  with  him  abroad,  that  he  ( this  young  gen 
tleman)  would  live  to  see  the  day  when  men  would  be  called  to 
order  for  quoting  the  Constitution  in  Congress. 

It  seems  now,  Mr.  Clerk,  that  a  gentleman  or  a  party  is  entirely 


416  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

out  of  place  when  he  or  it  quotes  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
with  approbation.  But  I  do  not  construe  it  as  mad  enthusiasts  do, 
at  all ;  nor  does  the  Republican  party  construe  it  as  they  do,  as  para 
mount  to  the  Constitution.  That  Declaration  says  that  every  man  is 
born  with  certain  inherent,  inalienable  rights;  these  are  life,  liberty 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  I  suppose  that  the  Almighty  intended 
man  to  live,  or  he  would  not  have  breathed  the  breath  of  life  into 
him.  Every  man  has  the  right  to  live,  but  he  certainly  may  forfeit 
that  right  whenever  he  violates  the  law.  I  suppose  everybody  knows 
that.  I  have  seen  it  tried.  Man  has  a  right  to  liberty ;  but,  in  my 
State  of  Ohio,  if  a  man  breaks  a  pane  of  glass,  and  takes  away  a 
piece  of  goods  from  a  tradesman's  store,  all  that  inalienable  right,  as 
it  is  called,  cannot  save  him,  and  he  is  sent  to  serve  ten  years  in  the 
penitentiary,  where  he  never  gets  the  floor,  not  even  for  a  personal 
explanation.  [Laughter].  Man  has  a  right  to  the  pursuit  of  happi 
ness,  undoubtedly ;  but  if  Brigham  Young  came  into  the  State  of 
Ohio  in  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  in  his  way,  [  laughter]  we  would 
lead  him  off  to  the  penitentiary  immediately.  All  these  things  are 
understood  by  men  who  analyze  them.  I  know  that  they  are  too 
much  abused  by  men  who  take  occasion  to  use  these  general 
expressions — all  of  which  are  true  in  the  sense  in  which  these  great 
men  use  them.  They  are  truly  much  abused ;  but  I  hope  that  the 
Republican  party  will  not  be  blamed  for  it,  for  they  have  as  many 
men  in  their  ranks  who  understand  them  properly  as  you  have. 
We  have  schools  and  colleges  in  the  West;  but  still  we  believe 
that  there  are  men  on  the  eastern  slopes  of  the  Atlantic,  who,  com 
paratively  ignorant  though  they  be,  do  still  comprehend  these  truths. 
They  have  a  Bunker  Hill  there  which  reminds  them  of  certain  things. 
They  had  a  James  Otis  there,  and  to  him  will  history  certainly  award 
the  merit  of  having  inaugurated  the  doctrines  of  the  Revolution 
ary  war. 

Sir,  I  said  yesterday  that  I  could  not  suppose  that  anybody 
believed  that  the  Republican  party  differed  with  the  old  men  of  the 
Confederation,  who  passed  the  ordinance  of  1787,  at  the  very  time 
they  were  making  the  Constitution.  I  do  not  think  any  man  on  the 
other  side,  or  any  side,  or  anywhere  in  the  world,  can  say  to  me  that 
I  differ  with  the  founders  of  the  Republic,  that  I  differ  with  the  men 
who  made  the  Constitution,  on  this  subject.  Why  so?  I  say  that 
I  agree  with  them.  My  principle  is  to  exclude  forced  labor — negro 
labor — from  every  Territory  where  white  men  can  work  well  and  be 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  417 

healthy.  That  is  my  idea.  But  I  do  not  know  but  that  I  shall  be 
turned  out  of  the  Republican  party  by  my  friend  from  Illinois  [  MR. 
LOVEJOY]  for  heresy.  That  is  my  doctrine,  and  I  say  that  the 
founders  of  the  Constitution  and  of  the  Republic  had  that  very  idea, 
and  put  it  into  practice  by  excluding  Slavery,  in  1787,  from  the 
entire  Northwestern  Territory,  now  five  powerful  States.  I  now 
pass  to  the  question  of  the  power  of  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States.  If  the  men  of  1787  were  right  in  their  policy,  then  I  think 
that  every  gentleman  will  say  that  we  are  equally  right  in  entertain 
ing  similar  views,  If  the  men  of  former  times  had  the  truth  with 
them  in  saying  that  it  was  better,  not  alone  for  the  present  States, 
not  for  the  East,  nor  for  the  West,  not  for  the  North,  nor  for  the 
South,  alone,  but  for  all  of  them ;  better  for  the  whole  Republic,  that 
the  white  children  of  the  father  should  go  to  a  place  where  they 
could  work  well  and  be  healthy ;  better  for  these  and  better  for  all 
that  the  children  of  the  white  man  should  have  all  that  unoccupied 
land,  if  not  too  hot  for  them — if  they  believed  that  they  were  right 
in  that,  then  I  say  we  will  find  power  in  the  Constitution,  if  we  by 
fair  construction  can,  to  do  that  right  thing.  I  think  that  I  have 
established  the  point,  at  least,  that  the  Republican  party  proposes  to 
do  exactly  that  which  the  makers  of  the  Constitution  did,  a  year 
before  the  Constitution  was  made.  They  got  the  power  to  do  it 
under  the  old  Confederation ;  they  had  that  power,  not  merely  by  the 
consent  of  the  South,  but  at  the  urgent  request  of  the  South.  Now, 
have  we  the  power  under  the  Constitution  to  do  it  ? 

The  gentleman  from  Mississippi  [  MR.  LAMAR  ]  suggested  to  me 
yesterday  that  the  law  organizing  the  Territory  of  Orleans  recognized 
Slavery  there.  So  it  did.  I  wish,  now,  that  section  of  the  law  en 
acted  in  1798,  for  the  Government  of  the  Territory  of  Mississippi, 
be  read. 

The  Clerk  read  as  follows  : 

"  SEC.  7.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  from  and  after  the  establish 
ment  of  the  aforesaid  Government,  it  shall  not  be  lawful  for  any  person  or 
persons  to  import  or  bring  into  the  said  Mississippi  Territory,  from  any  port 
or  place  without  the  limits  of  the  United  States,  or  to  cause  or  procure  to  be 
so  imported  or  brought,  or  knowingly  to  aid  or  assist  in  so  importing  or  bring 
ing,  any  slave  or  slaves ;  and  that  every  person  so  offending,  and  being  thereof 
convicted  before  any  court  within  said  Territory,  having  competent  jurisdic 
tion,  shall  forfeit  and  pay,  for  each  and  every  slave  so  imported  or  brought, 
the  sum  of  8300 ;  one  moiety  for  the  use  of  the  United  States,  and  the  other 
28 


418  SPEECHES   OF   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

moiety  for  the  use  of  any  person  or  persons  who  shall  sue  for  the  same ;  and 
that  every  slave  so  imported  or  brought  shall  thereupon  become  entitled  to, 
and  receive,  his  or  her  freedom." 

I  have  read  that  section  of  the  law.  Now,  Mr.  Clerk,  to  show 
that  at  that  time,  in  1798,  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  assumed 
and  exercised  a  power  in  a  Territory  which  they  were  forbidden  by 
the  Constitution  to  exercise  towards  a  State,  is  proof  conclusive  that 
they  at  that  time  understood  that  they  had  the  power  to  make  laws 
concerning  Slavery  and  the  slave  trade  in  the  Territories. 

There  are  some  other  matters,  sir,  which  I  have  been  looking  at 
this  morning,  which  I  wish  also  to  read.  About  the  year  1808,  a 
gentleman  whom  some  of  us  remember  well,  being  then  a  Delegate 
from  the  Territory  of  Mississippi,  (Mr.  Poindexter)  moved  to  change 
the  organic  law  of  that  Territory,  so  that  the  Governor  should  not 
have  the  power  of  proroguing  the  Legislature  at  his  pleasure.  Then, 
as  is  usual  in  deliberative  bodies,  a  discussion  sprung  up  upon  general 
questions  involved.  On  that  occasion  a  gentlemen  from  Georgia, 
whom  I  had  also  the  pleasure  to  know  for  some  time — a  Mr.  Troup 
— made  the  following  remarks : 

"  By  the  articles  of  cession,  the  right  of  soil  and  jurisdiction  was  ceded 
to  the  people  of  the  United  States  on  the  express  condition  that  the  articles  of 
the  ordinance  should  form  the  government  of  the  Mississippi  Territory,  and 
that  they  should  not  be  governed  otherwise.  The  inference  inevitably  is,  that 
the  State  of  Georgia  would  not  have  ceded  but  upon  the  express  condition ;  and 
this  inference  is  the  more  inevitable,  inasmuch  as  in  this  clause  Georgia  has 
made  an  express  exception  to  a  particular  article  in  the  ordinance;  from 
which  I  say  that  Georgia  intended  that  no  other  alteration  should  be  made. 

"  What  was  the  policy  of  the  ordinance,  and  what  the  object  of  its  fram- 
ers  ?  Why,  assuredly,  to  render  the  Government  of  the  Territories  depend 
ent  upon  the  Government  of  the  United  States.  And  how  was  it  to  be 
effected  ?  By  making  the  Territorial  Legislature  in  a  great  degree  dependent 
on  the  Governor,  and  him  absolutely  dependent  on  the  Federal  Executive. 
The  moment  we  make  the  Legislature  of  a  Territory  independent  of  its  Exec 
utive,  we  make  it  independent  of  the  Federal  Government.  * 

"  But  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi  Territory  is  certainly  mistaken  as 
to  one  point.  He  seems  to  consider  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  as 
giving  to  the  people  of  the  Territories  the  same  rights  as  the  people  of  the 
States.  It  is  a  mistaken  idea,  neither  warranted  by  the  letter  or  the  spirit  of 
the  Constitution ;  for  although  the  Constitution  has  declared  that  the  people 
of  one  State  are  entitled  to  all  the  rights  and  privileges  of  another,  yet  it  has  not 
declared  that  the  people  of  the  Territories  have  the  same  rights  as  the  people 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  419 

of  the  States.  In  another  part  of  the  Constitution,  it  is  indeed  expressly 
declared  that  Congress  shall  make  all  laws  for  the  disposal  of  the  Territories ; 
but  there  is  a  salvo  that  all  acts  done  and  contracts  made  previous  to  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution  shall  be  as  binding  as  if  done  afterward.  The 
articles  of  the  ordinance  were  enacted  previously,  and  are  consequently  bind 
ing  under  the  Constitution.  It  cannot  be  controverted  that  they  were  wisely 
adopted,  and  have  been  salutary  in  their  operation.  They  were  framed  by 
the  Congress  of  1787,  composed  of  men  whose  integrity  was  incorruptible 
and  judgment  almost  infallible.  These  articles,  from  that  time  to  this,  have 
remained  unaltered,  and  carried  the  Territories,  through  difficulties  almost 
insuperable,  to  prosperity.  And  now,  for  the  first  or  second  time,  an  altera 
tion  is  proposed,  the  consequence  of  which  cannot  be  foreseen,  without  any 
evidence  that  it  is  either  necessary  or  expedient. 

"  The  population  of  every  new  country  must  necessarily  be  composed  of 
a  heterogeneous  mixture  of  various  tempers,  characters  and  interests.  In  a 
population  thus  composed,  it  would  be  highly  ridiculous  to  expect  that  love 
of  order  and  obedience  to  law  would  always  predominate.  Therefore  the  old 
Congress  wisely  reserved  to  itself  the  right  to  control  them ;  to  give  the  Gov 
ernor  power,  when  a  Legislature  became  disorderly,  to  dissolve  them ;  and 
for  the  exercise  of  this  power  he  is  accountable  to  the  General  Government. 

"  The  gentleman  from  Mississippi  wishes  us  not  to  treat  the  Territories 
as  children,  whose  wild  extravagances  may  require  correcting  by  the  indul 
gent  hand  of  their  parents,  but  as  the  equals  of  the  States,  without  any  other 
reason  than  that  wtiich  he  states  to  be  the  situation  of  the  people  of  his  Terri 
tory.  They  will  next  wish  us  to  admit  them  into  the  Union  before  their  pop 
ulation  will  authorize  it ;  tell  us  that  that  Territory  does  not  grow  fast  enough, 
and  we  must  demolish  the  system  for  their  convenience." 

Mr.  Clerk,  it  will  be  observed  that,  in  all  the  early  discussions 
about  the  power  of  Congress  in  relation  to  a  Territory,  it  has  been 
admitted  that  Congress  had  entire  control  over  its  legislation  under 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  I  would,  if  I  thought  it  pru 
dent,  commend  to  my  Illinois  friends  and  to  others,  who  contend  for 
this  very  plausible  and  captivating  doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty 
in  the  Territories,  to  examine  what  it  was  the  great  founders  of  the 
Republic  thought  on  that  subject.  I  would  advise  them,  as  the  hon 
est  clergymen  of  Illinois,  who  are  about  to  be  silenced  by  some  law 
which  we  hear  of,  would  do:  to  give  it  their  prayerful  attention. 
[Laughter.] 

I  now  send  to  the  Clerk's  desk,  to  be  read,  the  tenth  section  of 
a  law  passed  in  1804,  to  be  enforced  in  the  Territory  of  Orleans, 
which  was  thereby  established. 

The  Clerk  read  as  follows: 


420  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

"  SEC.  10.  It  shall  not  be  lawful  for  any  person  or  persons  to  import 
or  bring  into  the  said  Territory,  from  any  port  or  place  without  the  limits  of 
the  United  States,  or  cause  or  procure  to  be  so  imported  or  brought,  or 
knowingly  to  aid  or  assist  in  importing  or  bringing,  any  slave  or  slaves ;  and 
every  person  so  offending,  and  being  thereof  convicted  before  any  court 
within  said  Territory  having  competent  jurisdiction,  shall  forfeit  and  pay,  for 
each  and  every  slave  so  imported  or  brought,  the  sum  of  $300,  one  moiety 
for  the  use  of  the  United  States,  and  the  other  moiety  for  the  use  of  the  per 
son  or  persons  who  shall  sue  for  the  same ;  and  every  slave  so  imported  or 
brought  shall  thereupon  become  entitled  to  and  receive  his  or  her  freedom. 
It  shall  not  be  lawful  for  any  person  or  persons  to  import  or  bring  into  the 
said  Territory,  from  any  port  or  place  within  the  limits  of  the  United  States, 
or  tc  cause  or  procure  to  be  so  imported  or  brought,  or  knowingly  to  aid  or 
assist  in  so  importing  or  bringing,  any  slave  or  slaves  which  shall  have  been 
imported  since  the  first  day  of  May,  1798,  into  any  port  or  place  within  the 
limits  of  the  United  States,  or  which  may  hereafter  be  so  imported  from  any 
port  or  place  without  the  limits  of  the  United  States ;  and  every  person  so 
offending,  and  being  thereof  convicted  before  any  court  within  said  Territory 
having  competent  jurisdiction,  shall  forfeit  and  pay  for  each  and  every  slave 
so  imported  or  brought  from  without  the  United  States  the  sum  of  $300,  one 
moiety  for  the  use  of  the  United  States,  and  the  other  moiety  for  the  use  of 
the  person  or  persons  who  shall  sue  for  the  same;  and  no  slave  or  slaves 
shall,  directly  or  indirectly,  be  introduced  into  said  Territory,  except  by  a 
citizen  of  the  United  States  removing  into  said  Territory  for  actual  settlement, 
and  being,  at  the  time  of  such  removal,  bona  fide  owner  of  such  slave  or 
slaves ;  and  every  slave  imported  or  brought  into  the  said  Territory  contrary 
to  the  provisions  of  this  act  shall  thereupon  be  entitled  to  and  receive  his  or 
her  freedom." 

Mr.  Clerk,  I  do  not  have  these  extracts  read  from  the  early  leg 
islation  of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  regarding  this  matter, 
with  any  view  now  to  enter  into  an  argument  showing  that  they  were 
constitutional.  I  only  produce  them  as  the  opinions  of  the  men  of 
that  day,  who  heretofore  have  been  considered  safe  counsellors 
on  questions  of  constitution  law.  What  they  did  certainly  evinces 
their  belief  that  they  had  power  to  regulate  the  question  of  Slavery 
in  Territories.  I  wish  now  to  commend  to  the  consideration  of 
the  House,  on  this  point,  the  opinions  of  another  gentleman  (Mr. 
,  Louis  McLane)  long  known  and  deservedly  honored  in  the  legislative 
and  executive  annals  of  the  country;  always  considered  as  exalting 
in  his  person  the  executive  offices  he  occupied ;  a  foreign  minister  of 
the  very  highest  reputation  since  the  old  men  of  the  Revolutionary 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  421 

time  have  passed  away.  His  son  is  now  one  of  the  diplomatic 
agents  of  the  country.  Mr.  Louis  McLane  said  what  I  send  to  the 
Clerk. 

The  Clerk  read  as  follows : 

"  Mr.  Chairman,  the  people  of  Missouri  cannot  be  incorporated  into  the 
Union  but  as  the  people  of  a  '  State,'  exercising  State  government.  It  is  a 
union  of  States,  not  of  people,  much  less  of  Territories.  A  Territorial  Gov 
ernment  can  form  no  integral  part  of  a  union  of  State  Governments ;  neither 
can  the  people  of  a  Territory  enjoy  any  Federal  rights  until  they  have  formed 
a  State  Government  and  obtained  admission  into  the  Union.  The  most 
important  of  the  Federal  advantages  and  immunities  consist  in  the  right  of 
being  represented  in  Congress — as  well  in  the  Senate  as  in  this  House — the 
right  of  participating  in  the  councils  by  which  they  are  governed.  These  are 
emphatically  the  '  rights,  advantages  and  immunities  of  citizens  of  the  United 
States.'  The  inhabitant  of  a  Territory  merely  has  no  such  rights.  He  is  not 
a  citizen  of  the  United  States.  He  is  in  a  state  of  disability  as  it  respects  his 
political  or  civil  rights.  Can  it  be  called  a  '  right'  to  acquire  and  hold  prop 
erty,  and  have  no  voice  by  which  its  disposition  is  to  be  regulated  ?  Can  it 
be  called  an  advantage  or  immunity  of  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  to  be 
subjected  to  a  Government  in  whose  deliberations  he  has  no  share  or  agency 
beyond  the  mere  arbitrary  pleasure  of  the  Governor — to  be  ruled  by  a  power 
irresponsible  (to  him,  at  least )  for  its  conduct ?  Sir,  the  rights,  advantages 
and  immunities  of  citizens  of  the  United  States,  and  which  are  their  proudest 
boast,  are  the  rights  of  self-government — first,  in  their  State  Constitutions, 
and  secondly,  in  the  Government  of  the  Union,  in  which  they  have  an  equal 
participation." 

"  The  right  to  govern  a  Territory  is  clearly  incident  to  the  right  of 
acquiring  it.  It  would  be  absurd  to  say  that  any  Government  might  purchase 
a  Territory  with  a  population,  and  not  have  the  power  to  give  them  laws ; 
but,  from  whatever  source  the  power  is  derivable,  I  admit  it  to  be  plenary,  so 
long  as  it  remains  in  a  condition  of  Territorial  dependence,  but  no  longer.  I 
am  willing  at  any  time  to  exercise  this  power.  I  regret  that  it  has  not  been 
done  sooner.  But,  though  Congress  can  give  laws  to  a  Territory,  it  cannot 
prescribe  them  to  a  State.  The  condition  of  a  people  of  a  Territory  is  to  be 
governed  by  others ;  of  a  State,  to  govern  themselves." — Annals  of  Sixteenth 
Congress,  First  Session,  vol.  1,  pages  1145,  1146,  1160. 

The  general  drift  of  all  these  observations  of  the  early  men  of 
the  country  concedes  the  fact  that  when  a  Territory  is  acquired,  it  is, 
before  it  becomes  a  State,  to  be  governed  by  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States,  whether  you  derive  that  power  from  the  clause  of  the 
Constitution  which  says  Congress  shall  have  power  to  make  all  need 
ful  rules  and  regulations  respecting  the  territory  and  other  property 


422  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

of  the  United  States,  or  derive  it  as  an  incident  to  the  power  to 
make  war  as  some  contend,  or  as  incident  to  the  power  to  make 
treaties  without  qualification,  as  others  contend.  You  see  that 
the  power  to  make  laws  for  a  Territory  was  always  considered,  under 
one  or  the  other  of  these  clauses,  as  belonging  to  Congress.  As 
that  power  is  without  limitation — as  there  is  no  possible  limitation 
placed  on  it  by  these  views  of  the  subject — I  maintain  that  it  is  just 
as  large  a  legislative  power  as  the  States  have  in  regulating  their 
State  policy.  I  hold,  and  I  may  differ  from  some  of  my  Republican 
friends,  that  Congress  can  enact  that  Slavery  shall  be  in  a  Territory, 
or  enact  that  it  shall  not  be  in  a  Territory,  just  as  fully  and  freely  as 
a  State  can  do  the  same  within  its  limits. 

Let  us  now  recur  for  a  few  moments  to  the  legislation  of  Con 
gress  in  that  portion  of  the  Louisiana  purchase  lying  north  of  lati 
tude  36°  30' — that  part  of  the  purchase  now  known  as  Kansas  and 
Nebraska.  I  was  endeavoring  to  show  that  the  Cabinet  of  Mr.  Mon 
roe  had  all,  upon  mature  reflection,  in  1821,  conceded  the  power  of 
Congress  to  prohibit  Slavery  in  a  Territory,  as  they  did  in  that  Mis 
souri  restriction.  When  I  quoted  the  opinions  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  it 
was  suggested  by  the  gentleman  from  South  Carolina  [MR.  KEITT] 
'that  Mr.  Calhoun  did  not  approve  of  it  at  the  time.  I  have  in  my 
hand  an  extract  from  a  speech  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  delivered  in  the  Sen 
ate  in  1838,  when  that  question  came  directly  before  that  body.  I 
had,  I  thought,  a  very  perfect  recollection  of  it ;  but  I  did  not  like  to 
state  it  positively  yesterday.  It  was  made  in  a  debate  upon  a  reso 
lution  which  he  himself  had  offered,  in  which  he  said  that  any 
attempt  by  Congress  to  abolish  Slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia, 
upon  the  ground  that  it  was  sinful,  would  be  a  dangerous  invasion  of 
the  rights  of  the  South.  He  went  further,  and  said  that  Congress 
had  no  right  to  determine  whether  the  institutions  of  a  State  were 
wicked  or  righteous.  I  am  very  much  of  that  opinion  myself.  I 
think  every  State  has  sins  enough  to  answer  for  itself,  without  inter 
fering  with  its  neighbors.  When  that  subject  was  under  discussion, 
Mr.  Calhoun  said: 

"  He  was  glad  that  the  portion  of  the  amendment  which  referred  to  the 
Missouri  compromise  had  been  struck  out.  He  was  not  a  member  of  Con 
gress  when  that  compromise  was  made,  but  it  is  due  to  candor  to  state  that 
his  impressions  were  in  its  favor ;  but  it  is  equally  due  to  it  to  say  that,  with 
his  present  experience  and  knowledge  of  the  spirit  which  then,  for  the  first 
time,  began  to  disclose  itself,  he  had  entirely  changed  his  opinion." 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  423 

This  is  from  Mr.  Calhoun's  own  speech,  made  in  1838.  I  read 
from  Benton's  Thirty  Years  in  the  United  States  Senate,  page  136*. 
It  was  made  in  a  very  animated  discussion,  which  was  conducted 
with  perfect  propriety  and  gentlemanly  deportment,  but  with  zeal 
and  fervor  and  great  power,  too — all  of  which  contributes  to  the  use 
fulness  of  every  discussion ;  and  which  I  could  wish,  in  common  with 
us  all,  might  be  more  sedulously  imitated  by  us  all  upon  this  floor, 
in  this  present  House  of  Representatives. 

Now,  I  could  read  further,  if  cumulative  testimony  were  want 
ing  to  show  that  Mr.  Calhoun  was  in  favor  of  that  law.  I  think  I 
have  shown  that  the  whole  Cabinet  did  agree  to  it ;  and  I  only  now 
wish  to  show  that  they  agreed  to  it  deliberately  and  in  writing.  Mr. 
Benton,  on  page  141  of  the  same  work,  has  collected,  among  other 
proofs,  the  following: 

"  First,  a  fac  simile  copy  of  an  original  paper  in  Mr.  Monroe's  handwrit 
ing,  found  among  his  manuscript  papers,  dated  March  4,  1820,  (two  days 
before  the  approval  of  the  Missouri  compromise  act),  and  endorsed:  '  Inter 
rogatories — Missouri — to  the  Heads  of  Departments  and  the  Attorney-Gen 
eral,'  and  containing  within  two  questions : 

"  1.  Has  Congress  a  right,  under  the  powers  vested  in  it  by  the  Con 
stitution,  to  make  a  regulation  prohibiting  Slavery  in  a  Territory  ? 

"2.  Is  the  eighth  section  of  the  act  which  passed  both  Houses  of  Con 
gress  on  the  3rd  instant,  for  the  admission  of  Missouri  into  the  Union,  consis 
tent  with  the  Constitution  ?" 

This  is  a  letter  in  the  handwriting  of  Mr.  Monroe,  and  the 
endorsement,  as  I  have  said,  is  in  his  handwriting ;  and  it  was  made 
two  days  before  the  act  making  this  restriction  was  approved  by  him 
as  President.  The  second  piece  of  testimony  collected  here  is : 

"  The  draft  of  an  original  letter  in  Mr.  Monroe's  handwriting,  but  with 
out  signature,  date  or  address,  but  believed  to  have  been  a  copy  of  a  letter 
addressed  to  General  Jackson,  in  which  he  says : 

"  '  The  question  which  lately  agitated  Congress  and  the  public  has  been 
settled,  as  you  have  seen,  by  the  passage  of  an  act  for  the  admission  of  Mis 
souri  as  a  State,  unrestricted ;  and  Arkansas  also,  when  it  reaches  maturity ; 

*  Mr^Lamar,  of  Mississippi,  between  whom  and  Mr.  Corwin  there  was  a  colloquy 
as  to  the  correctness  of  Mr.  Benton's  citation,  seemed  to  doubt  that  Mr.  Calhoun  had 
ever  made  such  an  admission.  The  extract  here  given  will  be  found  in  Mr.  Calhoun's 
remarks  in  the  Senate,  in  the  year  1838,  during  the  debate  on  his  celebrated 
resolutions  on  Slavery,  precisely  as  Mr.  Benton  quotes  in  the  "  Thirty  Years  View."- 
See  Appendix  Congressional  Globe,  Second  Session  Twenty-fifth  Congress,  volume  6, 
page  72. 


424  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

and  the  establishment  of  the  parallel  of  36°  30'  as  a  line  north  of  which  Slav 
ery  is  prohibited,  and  permitted  south  of  it.  I  took  the  opinion,  in  writing, 
of  the  Administration,  as  to  the  constitutionality  of  restraining  Territories, 
which  was  explicit  in  favor  of  it ;  and  it  was,  that  the  eighth  section  of  the  act 
was  applicable  to  Territories  only,  and  not  to  States  when  they  should  be 
admitted  into  the  Union.' " 

The  third  piece  of  testimony  collected  by  Mr.  Benton  is : 

"  An  extract  from  the  diary  of  Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams,  under  date  of 
the  3d  of  March,  1821,  stating  that  the  President  on  that  day  assembled  his 
Cabinet,  to  ask  their  opinions  on  the  two  questions  mentioned,  which  the 
whole  Cabinet  immediately  answered  unanimously  and  affirmatively ;  that  on 
the  5th,  he  sent  the  question  in  writing  to  the  members  of  his  Cabinet,  to 
receive  their  written  answers,  to  be  filed  in  the  Department  of  State ;  and 
that,  on  the  6th,  he  took  his  own  answer  to  the  President,  to  be  filed  with  the 
rest — all  agreeing  in  the  affirmative,  and  only  differing,  some  in  assigning, 
other  not  assigning,  reasons  for  their  opinions.  The  diary  states  that  the 
President  signed  his  approval  of  the  Missouri  act  on  the  6th  [  which  act  shows 
he  did,  ]  and  requested  Mr.  Adams  to  have  all  the  opinions  filed  in  the  De 
partment  of  State." 

The  other  day,  some  gentleman  upon  the  other  side  of  the  House 
read  that  diary,  as  extracted  from  Mr.  Adams's  journal.  Mr.  Benton 
only  condenses  it,  and  all  will  agree  that  it  is  correctly  stated  here. 
After  that,  in  1855,  a  letter  was  addressed  by  Mr.  Benton  to  Mr. 
Clayton,  who  was  Secretary  of  State  in  1849-'50,  to  know  what  had 
become  of  these  written  opinions.  Mr.  Clayton  answered,  under 
date  of  July  19,  1855,  as  follows: 

' '  In  reply  to  your  inquiry,  I  have  to  state  that  I  have  no  recollection  of 
having  ever  met  with  Mr.  Calhoun's  answer  to  Mr.  Monroe's  Cabinet  queries 
as  to  the  constitutionality  of  the  Missouri  compromise.  It  had  not  been  found 
while  I  was  in  the  Department  of  State,  as  I  was  then  informed;  but  the 
archives  of  the  Department  disclose  the  fact  that  Mr.  Calhoun,  and  other 
members  of  the  Cabinet,  did  answer  Mr.  Monroe's  questions.  It  appears,  by 
an  index,  that  these  answers  were  filed  among  the  archives  of  that  department. 
I  was  told  that  they  had  been  abstracted  from  the  records,  and  could  not  be 
found ;  but  I  did  not  make  a  search  for  them  myself.  I  have  never  doubted 
that  Mr.  Calhoun  at  least  acquiesced  in  the  decision  of  the  Cabinet  of  that 
day.  Since  I  left  the  Department  of  State,  I  have  heard  it  rumored  that 
Mr.  Calhoun's  answer  to  Mr.  Monroe's  queries  had  been  found ;  but  I  know 
not  upon  what  authority  the  statement  was  made." 

I  think,  Mr.  Clerk,  that  if  we  were  in  a  court  of  justice,  and 
before  a  jury,  with  the  fact  in  dispute  whether  Mr.  Monroe's  Cabi- 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  425 

net  did  make  these  answers  affirmatively,  and  if  I  were  maintaining 
the  affirmative  of  that  proposition,  I  should  be  sure  to  get  the  unan 
imous  verdict  of  a  sensible  jury  on  that  point,  on  the  evidence.  I 
shall  therefore  assume  it  as  true,  as  a  matter  of  history,  that,  in  the 
year  1821,  James  Monroe,  President  of  the  United  States;  John 
Quincy  Adams,  Secretary  of  State;  William  H.  Crawford,  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury;  John  C.  Calhoun,  Secretary  of  War;  Smith 
Thompson,  Secretary  of  the  Navy ;  William  Wirt,  Attorney  General, 
all  agreed,  after  hearing  that  debate — going  on,  as  it  had  been,  for 
two  years  in  Congress — with  their  minds  imbued  with  all  the  argu 
ments  on  both  sides,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  Congress  did  pos 
sess,  always  had  possessed,  and  always  would  possess,  the  unqual 
ified  power  to  restrict  Slavery  in  the  Territories,  or  to  make  any 
other  law  they  pleased  on  the  subject.  That  is  all  the  sin  the  Re 
publican  party  has  committed.  I  believe  that  Mr.  Monroe  did  know 
something  about  the  Constitution  of  the  country.  I  believe  that 
John  Quincy  Adams  did  understand  something  of  the  nature  of  this 
delicate  machinery  of  ours,  as  it  is  now  called.  The  Republican 
party  is  weak  enough  to  believe  that  there  are  some  men  in  the 
world  who  have  brains  in  their  heads  besides  themselves.  They 
believe  the  men  of  1821,  as  well  as  the  great  men  of  1787  and  1804, 
all  held  the  doctrines  of  the  Republican  party  of  1860;  and  this,  I 
think,  I  have  proved. 

Sir,  need  I  now  call  from  their  homes  in  eternity  the  great  and 
good  men  who,  in  1787,  declared  that  it  was  not  just  or  politic  to 
permit  Slavery  in  the  territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio,  and  so 
ordained?  Need  I  call  the  shades  of  Monroe  and  his  Cabinet  from 
the  "abodes  of  the  blessed,"  to  come  here  into  this  Hall,  and  declare 
again,  in  the  presence  of  the  world,  the  same  doctrines  they  have 
declared  under  just  such  obligations  as  now  rest  upon  us?  I  could 
wish  that  this  majestic  and  venerated  host  could  pass  in  review  before 
the  vision  of  the  Democratic  members  here  this  day.  Each  and  all 
would  range  themselves  on  the  Republican  side  of  this  House ;  for 
there,  and  there  only,  in  this  House,  would  they  find  the  principles, 
policy  and  constitutional  law,  which  they  proclaimed,  acted  upon, 
and  established,  from  the  day  they  broke  the  yoke  of  foreign  power 
up  to  the  day  when  it  pleased  God  to  relieve  them  from  their  earthly 
trials,  and  take  them  to  himself. 

Mr.  Clerk,  I  find  myself  at  a  loss  to  understand  how  it  is  possi 
ble  for  the  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  to  rid  their  minds  of  the 


426  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

crushing  weight  of  authority  which  presses  against  them,  upon  this 
subject,  either  as  to  the  policy  of  restricting  Slavery,  or  the  power 
of  Congress  to  do  it.  Will  they  assert  that  the  men  of  1787  were 
mistaken  in  the  policy,  and  that  Congress  and  the  Executive  Depart 
ment,  from  1804  to  1821,  were  mistaken  in  the  point  of  constitu 
tional  power?  Where  is  the  enormous  egotist  to  be  found  who  will 
assert  that  he  understands,  to-day,  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  better  than  President  Monroe  and  his  entire  Cabinet  did 
in  1821? 

Monroe  was  a  patriot  and  a  soldier  of  the  Revolution.  He  was 
familiar  with  all  the  deliberations  of  the  wise  men  and  all  the 
thoughts  and  writings  of  his  times  which  led  to  the  formation  of  the 
Union  and  adoption  of  the  Constitution.  He  was  an  anxious  par 
ticipant  in  the  discussions  concerning  the  powers  vested  in  Congress 
by  that  Constitution.  He  had  carefully  watched  its  operations  from 
the  time  of  its  adoption  up  to  1821,  when  he  was  called  upon,  under 
the  responsibilities  resting  on  the  highest  officer  of  the  Government, 
to  decide  whether  Congress  possessed  the  power  to  prohibit  Slavery 
in  a  "Territory."  He  was  a  Virginian,  a  slaveholder;  and,  if  biased 
at  all,  that  bias  might  be  expected  to  incline  him  against  the  power. 
Such  a  man,  such  a  President,  on  full  deliberation,  decided  that  such 
power  did  exist  in,  and  by  virtue  of,  that  Constitution,  and  accord 
ingly  approved  the  act  of  Congress  which  exerted  that  power. 
John  Quincy  Adams  was  his  Secretary  of  State.  A  child  of  the 
Revolution,  educated  in  the  principles  which  brought  that  Revolu 
tion  to  its  glorious  conclusion,  thoroughly  taught  and  studied  in  the 
science  of  jurisprudence,  he  brought  to  this  very  question  all  the 
powers  of  a  mind  naturally  strong,  strengthened  and  enriched  by  all 
the  appliances  of  study,  while  its  operations  were  freed  from  all  sinis 
ter  influences,  by  candor  and  integrity  which  even  party  malignity 
has  never  questioned.  Adams  was  a  Northern  man  and  not  a  slave 
holder.  He,  too,  agreed  with  Monroe,  the  Southern  slaveholder. 
William  H.  Crawford,  of  Georgia,  was  then  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury.  He  was  a  Southern  man  and  a  slaveholder.  He  was  at 
that  time  a  most  notable  man  among  men  who  were  indeed  worthy 
of  notice — a  man  of  austere  virtues,  and  yet  of  kindly  and  gener 
ous  nature.  But,  above  almost  all  men  of  his  time,  he  was  remark 
able  and  remarked  for  carrying  what  is  called  "strict  construction" 
to  great  extremes.  Every  power  not  clearly  granted,  in  terms,  to 
the  Federal  Government,  was,  by  him  and  his  school,  denied  to  the 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  427 

Government  and  reserved  to  the  States  or  the  people ;  and  this,  too, 
whether  such  power  were  claimed  for  the  executive,  or  legislative,  or 
judicial  department.  In  this  characteristic  he  stood  in  perfect  con 
trast  with  his  colleague  in  the  War  Department,  Mr.  Calhoun,  who 
then  held  doctrines  on  this  subject  condemned  by  Mr.  Crawford  and 
his  school  as  dangerous,  as  latitudinarian.  Mr.  Crawford  had  been 
much  in  public  life ;  had  studied — as  men  of  that  day  did — the  Con 
stitution,  and  all  other  forms  of  civil  polity  found  in  libraries  accessible 
to  them.  His  name  and  character  will  long  live  in  the  esteem  of  all 
Georgians,  as  well  as  in  that  of  all  Americans  who  venera'te  the  wise 
and  good.  Crawford,  strict  constructionist  as  he  was,  slaveholder  as 
he  was,  admitted  that  Congress  had  power  to  prohibit  Slavery  in  a 
Territory.  John  C.  Calhoun  was  also  in  this  Cabinet  council  of 
1821.  He  was  then  Secretary  of  War.  He  was  a  South  Carolinian, 
and  a  slaveholder ;  a  man  of  rare  powers  of  mind,  quick  in  discern 
ing  the  point  of  merit  in  any  question.  His  power  of  "generaliza 
tion"  was  greater  and  more  rapid  in  its  processes  than  that  of  any 
man  with  whom  I  have  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  acquainted.  All 
Southern  as  he  was,  he,  too,  admitted  this  power  to  subsist  in  Con 
gress  ;  and,  as  I  think  I  have  shown,  gave  his  written  opinion  to  that 
effect  under  all  the  grave  responsibilities  of  a  "Cabinet  minister." 
Smith  Thompson,  of  New  York,  was  then  Secretary  of  the  Navy. 
This  gentleman  is  better  known  to  the  world  as  a  Judge  of  the  Su 
preme  Court  of  the  United  States,  to  which  place  he  was  transferred 
on  account  of  his  accurate  and  profound  knowledge  of  law — law  as 
a  science — comprehending  all  subjects  embraced  in  what  are  denom 
inated  national  and  municipal  law.  He  was  a  Northern  man,  and  to 
the  four  others  I  have  enumerated  he  added  the  great  weight  of  his 
opinion,  concurring  with  them  fully  and  entirely. 

But  who  was  he,  the  then  Attorney  General  of  that  Cabinet  ? — 
he  \vhose  entire  official  duty  it  was  to  advise  the  President  and  each 
one  of  the  Cabinet  on  questions  of  law?  Mr.  Wirt  was  that  Attor 
ney  General — a  name  known  and  respected  by  all  lawyers  who  know 
anything  of  law ;  a  name  equally  known  and  respected  by  all,  of  all 
classes  and  professions,  who  admire  true  intellectual  greatness  com 
bined  with  amenity  of  manners  and  amiability  of  temper  that  won 
the  affections  of  all  hearts ;  a  man  of  such  rich  and  diversified  intel 
lect,  that  while  he  toiled  in  the  profoundest  depths  of  the  richest 
mines  of  legal  learning,  yet  found  leisure  and  had  the  taste  to  gather 
from  the  gardens  of  polite  letters  some  of  the  richest  and  rarest  of 


428  SPEECHES   OF   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

their  fruits  and  flowers ;  and,  to  crown  all,  he  was  gifted  with  an  elo 
quence  that  charmed  and  enraptured  all  who  heard  him.  To  this 
Virginian,  this  slaveholder,  this  all-accomplished  mind,  our  Repub 
lican  platform  of  this  day  was  submitted.  It  was  not  then  a  great 
spring-board  whence  some  insane  aspirant  for  Presidential  power  was 
to  leap  into  the  coveted  Executive  chair;  it  was  not  then  a  principle 
to  be  used  only  for  the  occasion,  and  to  be  announced  to  the  world 
amid  the  hoarse  clamor  of  popular  strife,  and  then  abandoned  at  the 
end  of  four  years  for  some  novelty  more  captivating  to  the  popular 
ear.  It  was  argued,  considered,  and  decided,  by  such  men  as  I  have 
named,  at  a  time  when  the  old  party  names,  Federalist  and  Repub 
lican,  had  ceased  to  have  a  meaning ;  when  the  beacon  fires  of  party 
war  were  quenched  in  the  pure  waters  of  a  pervading  American 
patriotism. 

As  the  Republican  platform  (so  much  derided  and  condemned 
now  by  learned  gentlemen  of  the  Democratic  party)  now  reads,  so 
did  the  great  tribunal  to  which  I  am  now  referring  decide  the  law  of 
the  Constitution.  To  this  august  court  I  appeal,  from  the 
hasty  opinions  of  your  modern  politicians  and  the  teachings  and 
paragraphs  cut  from  obscure  newspapers.  To  that  tribunal  I  sum 
mon,  for  judgment  and  sentence  of  death,  these  new  notions  which 
teach  us  that  this  same  Constitution,  which  in  1821  permitted  Con 
gress  to  forbid  Slavery  in  "Territories,"  now,  in  1860,  tramples  on 
Congress  and  its  power,  scoffs  at  all  power,  Federal  or  Territorial, 
and  bears  Slavery,  as  the  phrase  goes,  " suo  proprio  vigore,"  into  all 
Territories ;  and  only  pauses  to  bow  with  royal  courtesy  to  the 
crowned  and  sceptred  majesty  of  State  Constitutions.  Hither,  also, 
do  I  summon  that  other  modern  partisan  war-cry,  "popular  sover 
eignty,"  born  of  the  partisan  struggles  of  1854.  From  the  heated 
furnaces  of  political  strife  this  fire  went  forth.  It  shed  its  baleful 
light  over  Kansas  for  three  troubled  years ;  blazed  up  to  noontide, 
and  then,  like  a  tropical  sun,  dashed  down  the  sky,  cast  a  lurid  blaze 
over  the  chaos  it  had  created,  and  sunk,  quenched  in  blood,  leaving 
behind  it  only  the  spectral  images  of  confusion  and  war  which  its 
brief  day  had  evoked  into  life. 

Mr.  Clerk,  in  treating  this  subject  of  the  power  of  Congress 
over  Territories,  the  object  of  our  inquiry  is  to  ascertain  whether 
any  clause  in  the  Constitution  gives,  in  terms  or  by  fair  implication, 
the  power  in  question.  In  all  such  cases  the  inquiry  is,  what  is  the 
true  intent  and  meaning  of  the  Constitution  ?  The  words  employed 


ON    THE   SLAVERY   QUESTION.  429 

are  to  be  carefully  criticised ;  and  if  they  be  plainly  such  as  to  give 
or  deny  the  power,  then  the  meaning  is  ascertained.  If  doubts  arise, 
however,  from  an  examination  of  the  words  employed,  it  is  always 
safe  to  ascertain,  in  other  modes,  what  they  did  mean  who  wrote  and 
enacted  these  words.  Hence,  the  acts  of  individuals,  done  in  per 
formance  of  their  own  written  engagements,  show  what  they  under 
stood  their  own  written  contracts  to  mean.  So  the  conduct  of 
nations  in  the  execution  of  treaties  is  always  resorted  to  to  show 
wrhat  each  nation  understood  its  treaty  contracts  to  bind  it  to  perform. 
This  plain  rule  of  good  sense,  when  applied  to  Constitutions  or  legis 
lative  enactments,  is  called  " cotemporaneous  construction." 

Sir,  we  know  that  while  the  Convention  that  formed  the  Con 
stitution  wras  in  session,  in  the  year  1787,  the  old  Congress,  under 
the  old  Articles  of  Confederation,  passed  the  celebrated  ordinance  of 
1787,  whereby  that  Congress  did  enact  that  there  should  be  "no 
Slavery  or  involuntary  servitude  "  in  the  then  Northwestern  Territory. 
It  is  only  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  Convention  then  in  session, 
seeing  this  power  exerted  by  Congress  under  the  old  Government, 
should  conclude  that  the  same  ought  to  be  granted  to  Congress  in 
the  new  Constitution,  which  was  to  supersede  the  old  "Confedera 
tion."  Accordingly  we  find  a  clause  inserted,  which  says: 

' '  Congress  shall  have  power  to  make  all  needful  rules  and  regulations 
concerning  the  territory  and  other  property  of  the  United  States." 

The  men  who  enacted  the  ordinance  of  1787,  and  those  who 
formed  the  Constitution,  were  many  of  them  the  same  persons.  Is 
it  not  an  irresistible  conclusion  that  they  did  intend,  by  the  clause  I 
have  quoted,  to  confer  the  same  power  upon  Congress,  by  that 
clause  which  they  had  in  the  old  Congress  in  the  same  year, 
themselves  exerted,  by  virtue  of  the  powers  given  to  Congress, 
by  the  "Articles  of  Confederation,"  under  which  they  then  acted? 
Let  us  not  be  told  that  the  power  "to  make  all  needful  rules  and 
regulations  concerning  the  territory,"  was  inserted  in  haste,  or  was 
not  well  examined  and  well  understood.  Before  the  Constitution 
was  adopted,  and  after  it  was  formed,  it  underwent  the  closest  scru 
tiny.  The  public  prints  teemed  with  criticisms  upon  all  its  provis 
ions.  State  Conventions  debated  it  with  all  the  interest  its  vast 
importance  naturally  elicited,  and  with  all  the  power  which  the  great 
est  minds,  in  that  age  of  truly  great  men,  could  bring  to  the  discus 
sion.  They  knew  the  meaning  and  import  of  every  word,  and  the 


430  SPEECHES   OP   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

extent  and  intent  of  every  power  granted  to  each  branch  of  the  new 
Government.  Now,  we  also  know  that  the  leading  men  in  the  Con 
vention  that  formed  this  Constitution  were  many  of  them  leading 
and  active  men  in  the  legislative,  judicial  and  executive  departments 
of  the  Government  under  this  Constitution.  In  every  office  they 
may  have  thus  held,  they  took  a  solemn  oath  to  "observe  the  Con 
stitution,"  it  being  the  same  they  themselves  had  made.  We  must 
admit,  therefore,  that  they  did  not  intend  to  violate  any  clause  in 
that  Constitution.  Even  the  Democratic  party  will  not  assert  that 
the  great  men  of  that  day  would  be  likely  to  commit  perjury,  and, 
in  doing  it,  destroy  their  own  great  work ;  for  all  of  them  regarded 
the  Union  under  that  Constitution  as  furnishing  the  only  hope 
remaining  to  them  and  their  posterity,  of  realizing  their  long-cher 
ished  object,  rational  freedom  regulated  by  law.  Did  not  they  think 
they  had  the  constitutional  power  to  do  that?  They  did  it  in  1798 ; 
they  did  it  in  1804;  they  did  it  in  1820.  These  were  fathers  of  the 
Revolution ;  the  apostles  were  there,  making  their  own  commentary 
upon  their  own  gospel ;  and  this  was  the  commentary :  That  Con 
gress  make  laws  for  the  territory,  composed  as  it  was  of  a  heteroge 
neous  and  discordant  population,  not  likely  to  agree  among  them 
selves  upon  any  system  of  civil  polity.  We  treat  them  as  infants. 
We,  owning  the  country,  are  the  proper  legislative  power  to  give  it 
laws.  That  is  the  way  they  treated  it ;  and  I  never  shall  believe  that 
they  intended  that  that  power  should  not  be  there  when  they  made 
the  Constitution.  If  they  had  not  intended  it  to  be  there,  they 
never  would  have  exerted  it.  They  would  have  asked  for  an  amend 
ment  of  the  Constitution  if  they  had  thought  it  necessary ;  but  they 
went  right  forward,  and  exerted  the  power,  because  they  knew  the 
power  to  be  there.  One  of  two  conclusions  you  must  come  to,  or 
admit  the  full  weight  of  my  authorities :  either  that  these  men  vio 
lated  the  Constitution  which  they  had  sworn  to  support,  knowingly 
and  wilfully,  or  that  they,  the  makers  and  cotemporaneous  exponents 
of  the  Constitution,  did  conscientiously  believe  that  it  gave  them 
this  power.  Who  knows  so  well  what  he  meant  to  do,  what  he 
meant  to  say,  and  what  he  meant  to  inculcate,  as  the  author  of  the 
book  himself?  And  if  he  be  honest,  he  will  always  give  you  the 
true  meaning.  Thus  we  have  this  constitutional  gospel  delivered  to 
us  by  no  remote  posterity,  not  acquainted  with  the  writers ;  by  no 
commentator  or  historian  at  all ;  but  by  the  fathers,  the  very  men 
themselves  who  wrote  the  book.  And  we,  of  the  Republican  party, 


ON   THE    SLAVERY   QUESTION.  431 

are  to  be  charged  with  treason,  and  with  an  odious  attempt  to  disrupt 
this  glorious  Union  which  these  very  men  made  for  us ;  we  are  to  be 
denounced  for  believing  these  opinions  to  be  right,  instead  of  believ 
ing  the  doctrines  of  modern  commentators  on  that  Constitution,  who 
have  found  out  that  the  authors  of  it  did  not  know  what  they  meant ! 

Now  we  have  got  through  with  the  legislative  and  executive  his 
tory  of  this  Constitution  of  ours.  I  was  stating  yesterday  what  the 
Supreme  Court  had  done.  A  friend  of  mine  has  been  kind  enough 
to  furnish  me  with  a  speech  made  by  a  gentleman  in  the  Senate  who 
has  collected  the  very  authorities  to  which  I  wanted  to  refer.  From 
that  I  shall  read  to  show  what  the  judiciary  think  about  this  matter. 
As  I  said  yesterday,  such  is  the  structure  of  our  Government,  that, 
if  there  be  any  dispute  about  the  constitutional  power  of  Congress 
in  making  a  law,  and  an  individual  right  comes  in  question,  so  as  to 
give  the  judicial  department  of  the  Government  cognizance  of  it, 
and  they  decide  that  the  law  is  unconstitutional,  I  know  of  no  relief 
against  that  decision,  if  it  shall  be  wrong. 

I  wish  to  show  what  the  judicial  department  of  the  Government 
thought  of  this  power  of  Congress  to  govern  the  Territories.  There 
is  a  case  referred  to  which  I  had  not  before  me  yesterday,  and  I  have 
been  unable  to  get  the  book  from  the  Library  this  morning.  I  take 
it  for  granted  that  it  is  here  correctly  referred  to,  and  that  the  quota 
tions  are  correct.  It  is  the  case  of  Sere  rs.  Pitot.  It  occurred  in 
1810,  and  is  reported  in  6  Cranch,  page  336.  The  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States,  without  a  dissenting  voice,  in  the  most  explicit 
language,  then  declared  "that  the  power  of  governing  and  legislat 
ing  for  a  Territory  is  the  inevitable  consequence  of  the  right  to 
acquire  and  hold  it." 

Let  me  advert  to  that  Supreme  Court.  Who  were  upon  the 
bench  of  the  Supreme  Court  at  that  day?  Look  at  the  judicial  rec 
ords  of  the  country.  There  was  John  Marshall,  and  all  of  them  like 
him  in  great  qualities  of  mind  and  nature.  Virginians  know  who  I 
mean  when  I  refer  to  John  Marshall.  Questions  are  not  brought  up 
in  that  court  as  they  are  here.  A  gentleman  jumps  up  in  the  morn 
ing  here  to  set  himself  right  before  the  country.  [  Laughter].  To 
do  that,  he  offers  a  resolution.  The  House  votes  on  it.  One  gen 
tleman  speaks  over  on  that  side,  and  another  gentleman  speaks  on  this 
side,  pretty  nearly  all  the  time  he  has  the  floor.  Fifty  gentlemen  sit 
between,  engaged  in  an  earnest  colloquy  as  to  what  the  speakers  are 
saying.  [Laughter].  It  is  to  be  inferred  that  we  have  a  fair  oppor- 


432  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

tunity  of  knowing  the  opinions  of  gentlemen.  That  is  the  way  we 
decide  great  questions  here  at  this  time  in  our  present  unorganized 
condition.  Go  into  the  Supreme  Court.  Not  a  whisper  is  heard. 
The  court  is  opened,  and  sits  for  four  hours.  You  might,  at  the 
time  I  refer  to,  have  argued  a  question  for  three  weeks,  if  you  had 
the  power  to  hold  out  so  long,  and  every  judge  would  have  been 
found  listening  every  day  and  every  hour  and  every  minute.  All  the 
learning  of  the  law,  all  the  history  of  the  law,  all  the  logic  of  the 
law,  is  laid  before  that  court ;  and  the  court,  accustomed  to  look  into 
the  intricacies  of  the  law,  will  revolve  all  that  has  been  brought 
before  them  in  their  minds,  and  pronounce  what  is  and  what  is  not 
law.  They  have  sober  and  discreet  minds.  It  is  a  better  court  than 
this.  I  do  not  mean  to  cast  any  disparagement  upon  your  court, 
Mr.  Clerk.  I  wish,  if  it  could  be  so,  that  from  the  beginning  of  this 
session  the  Journal  Clerk  had  every  night  blotted  out  the  record  of 
our  proceedings,  that  they  might  not  be  heard  of  any  more  among 
men.  When  I  entered  this  Hall  a  new  man  the  other  day,  there  was 
a  strange  feeling  came  upon  me  that  I  was  not  in  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States.  Over  the  chair  where  the  Speaker  presided  sat,  in 
the  old  time,  the  Muse  of  History  with  her  pen.  The  men  who 
built  the  first  Hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives  thought  that 
this  grand  inquest  of  this  great  Republic  was  to  make  that  history 
which  should  illustrate  our  annals.  Clio  was  there,  emblematical  of 
what  was  to  be  submitted  to  the  dread  tribunal  of  posterity. 

But  to  the  decision  of  the  court.  The  decision  referred  to  is  to 
be  found  in  6  Cranch,  page  336.  There  was  no  dissenting  opinion. 
It  was  in  1810.  There  was  no  Democratic  party  in  those  days;  but 
there  was  a  Republican  party.  This  question  was  not  decided  the 
year  before  a  Presidential  election.  Time  is  always  a  circumstance 
to  be  looked  at  in  referring  to  a  historical  fact.  There  was  then  a 
powerful  party  in  this  country  called  the  Republican  party,  and  there 
was  a  remnant  of  an  old  and  most  respectable  party  called  Federal 
ists  ;  and  they  were  discussing  whether  we  should  make  war  upon 
England  or  upon  France.  I  have  always  thought  they  were  not  sure 
which  one  of  these  nations  to  fight ;  and  that  they  were  never  sure 
they  had  hit  upon  the  right  one ;  for  they  had  quite  equal  causes  of 
war  against  both.  They  recollected  La  Fayette  was  with  us,  and 
that,  I  believe,  turned  the  scales  against  England.  Says  the  court  of 
that  day : 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  433 

"  The  power  of  governing  and  legislating  for  a  Territory  is  the  inevita 
ble  consequence  of  the  right  to  acquire  and  hold  territory.  Could  this  posi 
tion  be  contested,  the  Constitution  declares  that  '  Congress  shall  have  power 
to  dispose  of  and  make  all  needful  rules  and  regulations  respecting  the  terri 
tory  or  other  property  belonging  to  the  United  States ;'  accordingly,  we  find 
Congress  possessing  and  exercising  the  absolute  and  undisputed  power  of  gov 
erning  and  legislating  for  the  Territory  of  Orleans." 

Do  you  not  think,  Mr.  Clerk,  that  John  Marshall  was  a  man 
who  knew  and  understood  the  subject  then  before  him?  If  any 
question  could  be  submitted  to  the  mind  of  that  man  with  which  he 
was  more  familiar  than  any  other,  it  was  a  question  arising  under  the 
powers  of  the  Government  as  defined  in  that  Constitution.  We 
know  that  the  whole  court  agreed  with  him  in  1810.  I  have  shown 
the  legislative  history  of  this  question.  Now,  it  was  declared  by  the 
Supreme  Court,  as  early  as  1810,  that  the  power  to  govern  the  Ter 
ritories  arises  under  the  power  to  acquire  territory,  or  under  the 
clause  of  the  Constitution  authorizing  Congress  to  make  all  needful 
rules  and  regulations  respecting  the  territory  and  other  property  of 
the  United  States.  So  much  for  1810.  Now,  some  years  have 
elapsed.  In  1  Peters,  page  511,  there  is  a  reference  to  the  same 
question,  and  the  law  is  laid  down  in  the  same  terms  as  in  1810.  In 
the  meantime,  says  Judge  Marshall,  "Florida  continues  to  be  a  Ter 
ritory  of  the  United  States,  governed  by  that  clause  of  the  Constitu 
tion  which  empowers  Congress  to  make  all  needful  rules  and  regula 
tions  respecting  the  territory  or  other  property  of  the  United  States." 
He  goes  on : 

"  Perhaps  the  power  of  governing  a  Territory  belonging  to  the  United 
States,  which  has  not,  by  becoming  a  State,  acquired  the  means  of  self-gov 
ernment,  may  result  necessarily  from  the  facts  that  it  is  not  within  the  juris 
diction  of  any  particular  State,  and  is  within  the  power  and  jurisdiction  of  the 
United  States.  The  right  to  govern  may  be  the  inevitable  consequence  of 
the  right  to  acquire  territory.  Whichever  may  be  the  source  whence  the 
power  may  be  derived,  the  possession  of  it  is  unquestioned." 

These  Republican  traitors,  these  dupes,  these  insurrectionists, 
these  one  hundred  and  thirteen  men  who  were,  as  you  say,  by 
intendment,  at  Harper's  Ferry  with  John  Brown ;  these  men  have 
committed  no  sin  but  that  of  believing,  with  Judge  Marshall,  and 
with  the  Supreme  Court  up  to  the  year  1828,  in  the  opinions  they 
entertain.  I  shall  show,  by  and  by,  that  the  same  doctrine  now  held 
29 


434  SPEECHES   OP   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

by  the  Republican  party  was  carried  forward  by  an  unbroken  current 
of  decisions  up  to  the  year  1852. 

Much  is  said  by  the  present  Democratic  party  just  now  about 
the  sanctity  of  constitutional  law,  as  delivered  to  us  by  the  Supreme 
Court.  I  revere  that  great  court,  and  will  abide  its  decisions,  when 
made  upon  any  question  brought  fairly  on  the  record  before  them ; 
which,  I  maintain,  was  not  done,  as  some  suppose,  in  the  famous 
Dred  Scott  case.  Gentlemen  on  the  other  side  would  disregard  the 
solemn  decisions  of  that  court  for  half  a  century,  and  cling  to  an 
obiter  dictum,  casually  thrown  out  in  a  single  case  recently.  They 
remind  me  of  a  dispute  between  two  excellent  clergymen.  They 
both  regarded  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  very  properly  as  the  ora 
cles  of  God;  but  they  differed  as  to  their  meaning.  "Well,  brother," 
said  the  old  Methodist,  "we  agree  well  enough  about  the  Adamic 
law  and  the  Abrahamic  covenant,  and  the  Divine  legation  of  Moses; 
but  when  we  come  to  the  Christian  dispensation,  you  will  fork  off." 
Our  Democratic  brethren  here  have  a  strange  disposition  to  "fork 
off"  from  us,  and  run  after  the  casual  remarks  of  the  court — the 
"obiter  dicta"  of  the  court,  to  express  it  in  judicial  phrase — while 
they  travel  on  with  us  in  the  well-paved  highway  up  to  1852. 

Mr.  Clerk,  I  know  that  this  long,  wandering  journey  among  the 
legislative  annals  and  judicial  records  of  the  country  is  very  tedious ; 
but  truth  is  a  jewel  of  such  precious  value,  that  we  are  told  we  must 
go  to  the  bottom  of  a  deep  well  after  it,  if,  perchance,  we  may 
find  it  there.  I  wish  to  let  down  my  pitcher  for  another  draught  of 
that  sort  of  water  from  the  well  of  the  Supreme  Court.  Two  decis 
ions  of  that  court  we  have  had  already.  Here  is  the  third  in  the 
year  1853.  We  are  coming  now  close  upon  the  period  of  the  Dem 
ocratic  Hegira.  In  1853,  a  very  few  weeks  before  the  introduction 
of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  there  was  an  opinion  pronounced  by 
Judge  Wayne,  at  the  December  term  of  that  court,  in  which  he 
said: 

' '  The  Territory  [  speaking  of  California  ]  had  been  ceded  as  a  conquest, 
and  was  to  be  preserved  and  governed  as  such,  until  the  sovereignty  to  which 
it  passed  [  the  United  States  ]  had  legislated  for  it." 

He  proceeds : 

"That  sovereignty  was  the  United  States,  under  the  Constitution,  by 
which  power  had  been  given  to  Congress  '  to  dispose  of  and  make  all  need 
ful  rules  and  regulations  respecting  the  territory  or  other  property  belonging 
to  the  United  States.'  " 


ON    THE    SLAVERY   QUESTION.  435 

Then,  I  say,  from  the  earliest  period  of  our  Government  down 
to  1853,  everybody — all  agreeing  to  it;  all  shades  of  politics;  Con 
gresses  of  every  hue  of  politics;  all  the  courts  of  the  country,  all 
over  it — regarded  the  question  as  clearly  settled,  as  the  Republicans 
now  hold  it.  I  wish  this  speech  of  mine,  so  far  as  it  goes,  imperfect 
as  it  is,  to  be  considered  as  "Corwin's  Apology  for  Republicanism." 
Mr.  Barclay  wrote  "An  Apology  for  Quakerism,"  a  capital  book, 
with  a  good  deal  of  sense  in  it.  My  Apology  for  Republicanism 
may  not  be  quite  as  authoritative. 

What  I  have  proved,  I  think  to  the  satisfaction  of  all,  is,  that 
the  men  who  framed  the  Constitution  acted  upon  the  power  to  gov 
ern  the  Territories,  believing  it  to  be  there ;  and  they  acted  under 
oath;  that  the  legislative  department  of  the  Government  always 
have  exercised  it  up  to  the  year  1854;  and  that  the  judicial  depart 
ment  of  the  Government  decided  the  law  thus,  whenever  the  ques 
tion  arose,  up  to  the  year  1853.  Now,  I  say  to  gentlemen  upon  the 
other  side,  if  you  can  put  yourself  in  as  good  society  as  this  Repub 
lican  party  are  in,  then  I  will  agree  to  pay  a  visit  to  you,  and  per 
haps  stay  all  night.  [Laughter.]  Until  you  do,  I  choose  to  put  up 
at  the  Republican  hotel.  [Laughter.]  I  wish  to  compare  grave 
yards,  monuments,  epitaphs  and  authorities  with  the  Democratic 
party.  We  Republicans  may  possibly  be  under  a  great  mistake  upon 
this  subject ;  but  if  we  are,  the  most  intelligent  people,  according  to 
your  own  account  of  it — and  I  believe  it  true — have  been  under  the 
same  mistake  from  the  beginning. 

Sir,  I  am  an  old  Whig,  and  the  very  doctrines  which  the  Whig 
party  always  inculcated  upon  this  subject  are  the  cardinal  doctrines 
of  the  Republican  party ;  and  the  only  constitutional  doctrines  they 
have  enunciated  were  born  of  a  violation  of  the  same  Whig  doctrines 
in  1854.  The  Republican  party  had  never  had  a  name,  and  never 
had  an  existence,  in  that  form  and  that  name,  had  it  not  been  for  the 
proceedings  of  that  Congress  in  1854.  I  suppose  that  every  man 
will  admit  this.  And  why?  Why  was  that  treasonable  party,  as 
you  now  denominate  it,  brought  into  existence  ?  Do  you  suppose 
that  all  the  people  of  the  North  are  insane?  I  would  like  an  inquest 
of  lunacy  to  try  the  question,  and  I  would  show  where  the  insanity 
is.  It  was  in  that  year  1854  that  you  proposed  to  renounce  this 
doctrine  of  the  control  of  Congress  over  the  Territories.  It  was  then 
that  you  determined  to  depart  from  that  compromise  of  1850,  to 
which  my  friend  from  Illinois  [MR.  MC,CLERNAND]  just  referred  me, 


436  SPEECHES   OF   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

and  with  which  I  was  satisfied.  Why  was  I  satisfied  with  it?  In 
the  first  place,  when  the  compromise  measures  of  1850  were  passed, 
I  was  not  a  member  of  the  Senate.  I  was  a  member  of  the  Cabi 
net  when  they  were  brought  to  President  Fillmore.  I  was  for  their 
approval.  Congress  had  determined  the  details ;  it  was  for  the  Pres 
ident  to  see  whether  the  laws  were  constitutional,  not  whether  they 
were  good  laws.  It  is  sometimes  said  that  Congress,  by  the  com 
promises  of  1850,  renounced  its  power  over  the  Territories. 

MR.  MCCLERNAND — Renounced  the  policy  of  exercising  it. 

MR.  CORWIN — I  hold  that  to  be  a  very  different  question.  I 
suppose  that  Congress  has  the  power  to  declare  war  against  the 
whole  world,  although  nobody  intends  to  exercise  it.  What  I  speak 
of  is  the  law.  The  gentleman  will  find,  if  he  looks  to  the  law,  that 
Congress  reserved  this  power.  Utah  and  New  Mexico  were  to 
report  their  laws  to  Congress.  If  Congress  disapproved  of  the  laws, 
they  were  to  be  null  and  void.  Does  that  look  like  surrendering  the 
legislative  power  of  Congress  over  the  Territories  ?  If  Congress  had 
not  even  expressly  reserved  the  power,  the  acts  organizing  those  Ter 
ritories,  in  view  of  the  previous  history  of  this  Territorial  question, 
could  not  properly  receive  a  different  construction.  But  the  power 
was  expressly  reserved,  so  that  there  could  be  no  mistake  about  it ; 
and  every  law  made  by  either  of  those  Territories  might  have  been 
vetoed  by  Congress.  Now,  I  want  to  stand  upon  high  authority.  I 
was  in  Congress  during  about  ten  months  of  that  debate.  A  certain 
orator,  in  a  place  I  will  not  name,  for  fear  I  may  offend  the  sensibili 
ties  of  some  gentlemen  here,  in  speaking  of  the  battle  of  Okecho- 
bee,  said: 

"  Gentlemen,  I  can  say,  as  an  ancient  Greek  poet  said,  quorum  pars  fui. 
If  you  have  not  had  the  advantages  of  education,  ( and  I  dare  say  many  of 
you  have  not),  that  means  a  part  of  whom  I  was  which."  [Great  laughter]. 

I  heard  all  of  that  Senatorial  debate.  I  certainly  heard  all  the 
earnest  debate — listened  to  it  for  several  months.  I  heard  the  sub 
ject  debated  by  the  great  men  of  the  day — by  old  men  and  by 
young  men,  too.  Webster  was  there ;  Clay  was  there  ;  Mr.  Calhoun 
made  a  speech  upon  the  subject,  also.  Will  you  read  it  now?  He 
scarcely  changed  his  opinions  after  that.  He  said  that  this  doctrine 
of  the  Territories  having  the  right  to  make  laws  for  themselves  was 
absurd.  Besides,  said  he,  it  is  contrary  to  the  practice  of  the  Gov 
ernment  from  its  foundation  down  to  the  present  time.  I  do  not  say 


ON    THE    SLAVERY   QUESTION.  437 

it  is  absurd,  but  I  agree  with  him  in  the  historical  fact — that  it  is 
contrary  to  the  practices  of  the  Government.  Some  of  my  friends 
at  the  North,  and  some  at  the  West,  too,  thought  that  these  compro 
mise  measures  of  1850  did  abandon  the  notion  that  it  was  expedi 
ent  to  legislate  for  the  Territories.  I  have  no  quarrel  to  make  with 
them  now  on  that  point.  I  know  how  they  treated  Webster.  I 
hope  God  will  forgive  them  for  that — I  cannot.  What  were  the  doc 
trines  of  Clay  and  Webster  on  the  subject?  They  repeated  them 
over  and  over  again.  Those  men  understood  the  law  of  nations. 
They  never  had  any  dispute  about  them  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States.  By  the  law  of  nations,  when  one  sovereignty  cedes  a  colony 
or  country  to  another,  with  the  power  of  the  Government  passing 
with  it,  all  the  institutions  of  the  ceded  territory  not  incompatible 
with  the  fundamental  law  of  the  country  to  which  it  is  ceded  remain 
just  as  they  were  at  the  time  of  the  cession,  until  they  are  changed 
by  positive  legislation.  Now,  apply  that  doctrine  to  Mexico.  Not 
only  was  there  no  positive  law  in  that  territory,  when  acquired  under 
the  treaty  of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo,  making  Slavery  legal,  but  there 
was  a  positive  law  against  its  existence.  Negro  Slavery  had  been 
abrogated  by  a  decree  of  the  Mexican  Government,  which  had  not 
been  altered  or  changed  with  regard  to  any  of  the  territory  which  we 
acquired.  What  was  the  effect  of  that  ? 

First,  then,  that  there  was  no  necessity  for  prohibiting  Slavery 
in  those  new  territories,  because  Slavery  never  could  be  there  until 
some  legislative  power,  having  authority  to  make  the  law,  established 
it.  Slavery  is  the  offspring  of  local,  State  or  municipal  law.  The 
sovereign  legislative  power  over  the  Territories  being  with  Congress, 
Slavery  never  could  be  established  there  by  law  till  Congress  had 
made  the  law,  or  approved  the  law  of  the  Territorial  Legislature 
establishing  it.  Here  were  two  reasons.  First,  it  never  could 
exist  without  positive  law ;  and  secondly,  there  was  a  positive  law 
forbidding  it.  Such  were  the  views  and  reasons  assigned  by  the 
eminent  men  of  whom  I  speak,  for  not  prohibiting  Slavery  in  the  ter 
ritory  acquired  from  Mexico  by  law  of  Congress. 

When  Mr.  Clay  rose  in  his  place — whose  majestic  form  I  think 
I  now  see  before  me — and  declared  that  no  power  on  earth  would 
ever  induce  him  to  plant  Slavery  anywhere  where  it  did  not  exist ; 
when  he  said  this,  prepared  to  refer  all  his  life's  history  to  the  tribu 
nal  of  posterity,  and  knowing  that  he  was  soon  to  appear  before  Him 
who  knows  the  motives  of  men,  all  understood  his  principles  then, 


438  SPEECHES   OF   THOMAS   CORWIN, 

and  felt  their  truth  and  power.  Mr.  Webster  had  the  same  view  of 
the  question  precisely.  He  repeated  it  over  and  over  again,  and 
said  he  would  have  put  a  restriction  upon  the  Territory  if  there  had 
been  a  legal  necessity  for  it.  This  idea  of  the  Constitution  introduc 
ing  Slavery  everywhere,  when  not  forbidden  by  a  State  Constitution, 
had  not  become  fashionable  then.  That  was  in  1850,  and  the  Dred 
Scott  decision  came  after  that. 

Mr.  Clerk,  I  speak  of  the  different  departments  of  the  Govern 
ment  with  perfect  respect,  but  I  undertake  to  say  that  neither  Mr. 
Clay  nor  Mr.  Webster  could  ever  have  been  led  to  believe  that  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  would  decide  that  Congress  had 
no  power  to  legislate  over  the  subject  of  Slavery  in  the  Territories. 
I  shall  not  here  discuss  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  for  I  have  passed 
over  that  already. 

Now,  sir,  in  the  most  extreme  and  warmest  brotherly  kindness, 
I  will  show  a  little  of  the  antiquities  of  the  Democratic  party, 
[Laughter].  I  shall  speak  of  the  Democratic  party  of  the  North. 
De  mortuis  nihil  nisi  bonum.  [Laughter].  A  celebrated  man  in  our 
country  has  said  that  that  maxim  ought  to  be  changed  to  "de  mor 
tuis  nihil  nisi  verum."  I  take  that  proposition  and  adopt  it.  I  da 
not  mean  to  accuse  the  Democratic  party  of  any  crime,  except  of 
being  once  in  the  right,  and  afterwards  pursuing  the  wrong.  My 
colleague  from  the  Dayton  district  [MR.  VALLANDIGHAM],  in  a  spirit 
of  candor,  told  us  the  other  day  that  the  Democratic  party  of  Ohio- 
had  been  wrong  on  this  question  of  Slavery.  I  wish  to  show  that 
he  was  right  in  that  declaration,  according  to  his  view  of  it,  and  that 
if  he  would  just  change  that  word  "wrong"  into  "right,"  the  Dem 
ocratic  party  were  right  according  to  the  doctrines  of  the  fathers  of 
the  Government;  but  they  wandered  away  from  the  institutions  of 
Moses,  to  the  worship  of  Astheroth  and  other  diabolical  divinities. 
I  will  quote  a  little  of  their  gospel,  from  cathedral  authority,  in  the 
State  of  Ohio,  in  the  year  1848,  whereby  I  wish  to  show  to  the 
Democratic  party  of  the  South,  as  it  is  called,  how  great  an  act  they 
have  achieved  in  having  converted  the  most  hardened  and  abomina 
ble  sinners  who  have  existed  in  the  world,  [Laughter]. 

Democratic  gentlemen  from  the  South  must  summon  their  Chris 
tian  charity  to  this  work.  They  must  remember  that  our  Demo 
cratic  Sauls  of  Tarsus  were  on  the  way  to  Damascus  in  1848,  bent 
upon  persecuting  Democratic  Christians  in  the  South.  You  see  how 
they  divided  the  clothes  of  the  Southern  Stephen,  and  stoned  him  to 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  439 

death.  You  will  rejoice,  however,  to  see  how  "a  great  light  shone 
upon  them"  in  1854,  and  how  they  heard  about  that  time  a  voice 
from  the  South,  and  lo!  upon  the  instant,  they  donned  their  "sandal 
shoon  and  scallop  shell,"  and,  with  meek  submission  and  pious  zeal, 
they  made  their  pilgrimage  from  the  icy  regions  of  old  constitutional 
faith  to  the  sunny  realms  of  Southern  novelties,  where,  to  this  day, 
they  remain  in  "brotherly  love."  Miracles  had  not  ceased.  But 
who  shall  say  whether  these  wanderers  from  their  old  homes  may 
not  grow  weary  of  their  new  abodes,  and  yet  turn  their  faces  to 
Judea,  crying,  "When  I  forget  thee,  O  Jerusalem,  may  my  right 
hand  forget  its  cunning!"  But  let  me  refer  you  to  their  heresies- 
but  be  not  alarmed,  for  they  are  all  safe  now : 

"  Resolved,  That  the  people  of  Ohio  now,  as  they  have  always  done, 
looking  upon  the  institution  of  Slavery  as  an  evil,  unfavorable  to  the  full 
development  of  our  institutions  " 

These  Democratic  people  have  had  greatly  at  heart  that  "devel 
opment  of  our  institutions."  They  were  speaking  for  the  people  of 
the  State  of  Ohio — for  the  Whigs  held  the  same  ideas  exactly,  with 
one  exception,  which  I  shall  state  directly 

"  unfavorable  to  the  full  development  of  our  institutions;  and  that,  enter 
taining  these  sentiments,  they  will  feel  it  to  be  their  duty  to  use  all  the  pow 
ers  consistent  with  the  national  compact  to  prevent  its  increase,  to  mitigate, 
[here  is  the  point  on  which  I  differ  with  them]  and  finally  eradicate  them." 

The  classical  mind  of  my  colleague  from  the  Dayton  district 
suggests  to  him  the  etymological  meaning  of  that  horrible  word 
[laughter]  "eradicate" — not  lop  it  off,  not  prevent  its  growing  into 
other  fields  from  those  in  which  it  is  now  planted ;  but  to  walk  into 
the  South,  and  take  Slavery  there,  and  grub  it  up — provided  the 
Constitution  will  allow  it.  What  do  you  charge  these  Seward  men 
with  ?  You  say  that  they  will  act  according  to  the  forms  of  the  Con 
stitution  ;  that  they  will  get  an  overruling  power  in  the  popular 
department  of  the  Government — in  this  House ;  that  they  will  get  a 
majority  of  the  Senate ;  that  they  will  have  a  willing,  obedient  Exec 
utive  in  the  White  House ;  and  then,  that  they  will  walk  over  the 
Constitution.  That  is  precisely  what  the  Democratic  party  of  Ohio 
proposed  to  do.  We  Whigs  never  did  propose  to  do  that.  We 
never  believed  that  we  had  any  business  to  "eradicate"  Slavery. 
We  never  intimated  that  we  could  interfere  with  it  in  the  South,  or 
that  we  desired  to  interfere  with  it.  But  your  Democratic  brethren, 


440  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

with  whom  you  are  now  associating  so  happily,  believed  that  identi 
cal  doctrine.  You  charge  Mr.  Seward  with  having  introduced  into 
the  brain  of  John  Brown  the  idea  that  Slavery  ought  to  be  uprooted 
in  the  States.  I  suppose  he  had  seen  this  resolution  passed  by  the 
great  Democratic  party  of  Ohio  in  1848.  I  think  he  lived  in  that 
State.  You  have  been  spending  days  and  weeks — seven  weeks — in 
proving  that  John  Brown  never  would  have  been  at  Harper's  Ferry, 
and  that  Helper  never  would  have  written  his  book — although  he 
wrote  it  two  or  three  years  before  Mr.  Sewar.d  made  the  remark — if 
they  had  not  heard  that  William  H.  Seward  said  there  was  "an  irre 
pressible  conflict "  between  free  labor  and  slave  labor.  That  is  alto 
gether  too  philosophical  an  idea  for  an  enthusiast  like  John  Brown  to 
take  hold  of.  He  had  been  reading  the  Old  Testament.  He  was  a 
member  of  the  old  New  England  school  of  Presbyterians.  He 
believed  it  was  his  duty  to  draw  the  sword  of  the  Lord  and  Gideon 
and  to  smite  the  heathen,  everywhere  he  could,  with  sword  and  bat 
tle-ax — not  with  argument.  That  is  the  way  with  that  set  of  people. 
In  every  battle-field  of  the  Revolution,  if  these  Yankee  regiments 
were  there,  and  had  the  slightest  chance  before  the  encounter  with 
the  British  foe,  they  would  kneel  down  and  invoke  the  aid  of  that 
God  who  of  old  had  bared  His  right  arm  for  the  salvation  of  His 
people.  These  were  the  kind  of  men  from  whom  John  Brown 
sprang.  When  he  saw  the  great  State  of  Ohio  represented  by  the 
Democratic  party,  and  heard  them  say  that  Slavery  was  an  enormous 
evil — an  evil  which  prevented  the  development  of  the  glorious  insti 
tutions  for  which  his  fathers  had  fought,  what  would  be  his  reflec 
tion?  "What  is  to  be  done  to  eradicate  this  institution?"  He 
would  say:  "I  will  strike  at  this  unholy  thing  that  impedes  the 
onward  march  of  this  Government  to  that  consummation  which  shall 
give  freedom  to  all  men !" 

MR.  VALLANDIGHAM — The  other  part  of  the  resolution  has  not  been 
read.  As  there  are  some  peculiar  beauties  in  it,  illustrative  of  the  first  part, 
I  regret  that  my  distinguished  colleague  has  been  so  unfortunate  as  not  to 
have  it  in  his  possession." 

MR.  CORWIN — That  is  the  whole  of  one  resolution.  The  next 
resolution  reads: 

"  But  be  itfmther  resolved,  That  the  Democracy  of  Ohio  do,  at  the  same 
time,  fully  recognize  the  doctrine  held  by  the  early  fathers  of  the  Republic, 
and  still  maintained  by  the  Democratic  party  in  all  the  States,  that  to  each 
State  belongs  the  right  to  adopt  and  modify  its  own  municipal  laws ;  to  regu- 


ON    THE    SLAVERY   QUESTION.  441 

late  its  own  internal  affairs ;  to  hold  and  maintain  an  equal  and  independent 
sovereignty  with  each  and  every  other  State ;  and  that  upon  these  rights  the 
National  Legislature  can  neither  legislate  nor  encroach." 

That  is  an  entirely  different  thing.  What  the  Democratic  party 
proposed  to  do  was  to  eradicate  Slavery  by  some  means  or  other. 
The  great  sin  that  the  Republican  party  has  committed  is,  it  holds  at 
this  day  the  doctrine  which  the  Democratic  party  announced  in  1848, 
though  it  does  not  pretend,  and  has  never  pretended,  that  Slavery 
should  be  eradicated  in  the  States,  otherwise  than  by  the  States 
themselves. 

I  will  cheerfully  read  the  resolutions  of  the  Ohio  Democracy  in 
1840,  to  which  my  colleague  refers.  Here  they  are: 

"  Resolved,  That,  in  the  opinion  of  this  Convention,  Congress  ought  not, 
without  the  consent  of  the  people  of  the  District,  and  of  the  States  of  Vir 
ginia  and  Maryland,  to  abolish  Slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  that 
the  efforts  now  making  for  that  purpose,  by  organized  societies  in  the  free 
States,  are  hostile  to  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution,  and  destructive  to  the  har 
mony  of  the  Union. 

"  Resolved,  That  Slavery,  being  a  domestic  institution  recognized  by  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  we,  as  citizens  of  a  free  State,  have  no 
right  to  interfere  with  it ;  and  that  the  organizing  of  societies  and  associations 
in  the  free  States,  in  opposition  to  the  institutions  of  sister  States,  while  pro 
ductive  of  no  good,  may  be  the  cause  of  much  mischief;  and  while  such 
associations,  for  political  purposes,  ought  to  be  discountenanced  by  every 
lover  of  peace  and  concord,  no  sound  Democrat  will  have  part  or  lot  with 
them. 

"  Resolved,  That  political  Abolitionism  is  but  ancient  Federalism,  under 
a  new  guise ;  and  that  the  political  action  of  anti-slavery  societies  is  only  a 
device  for  the  overthrow  of  Democracy." 

Now,  Mr.  Clerk,  it  becomes  me,  of  course,  to  make  some 
remarks.  They  had  Abolition  societies  springing  up  in  those  days, 
and  at  that  time  it  was  doubtful  with  which  party  these  Abolitionists 
would  vote.  They  put  up  a  separate  ticket,  and  it  was  this  very 
ticket  that  elected  a  President  of  the  United  States  in  1844,  and 
changed  the  history  and  destiny  of  this  Republic.  Gentlemen 
remind  me  that  Governor  Chase,  of  Ohio,  is  a  good  Republican 
now,  and  a  member  of  the  Republican  party,  and  was  a  member 
of  the  Liberty  party  in  1844.  I  believe  all  this  is  true.  Governor 
Chase's  principles  are  now  well  known.  He  is  a  Republican  now ; 
nothing  more.  All  men  who  believe,  as  the  Abolitionists  say  they 


442  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS    CORWIN. 

believe,  that  Slavery  is  such  an  inherent  wrong  that  the  Consti 
tution  and  laws  can  give  it  no  validity,  will  go  with  the  Repub 
lican  party  for  restricting  it  in  any  place  where  it  does  not  exist, 
though  it  is  now  a  fact  that  Abolitionists,  as  a  party,  will  have 
no  affiliation  with  the  Republicans  While  at  the  same  time,  this 
Abolition  Society,  which  always  was  opposed  to  the  Whig  party, 
because  they  did  not  go  far  enough  upon  this  subject,  defeated 
Henry  Clay,  the  great  Whig  champion,  made  Mr.  Polk  President, 
acquired  territory,  and  brought  upon  you  the  very  questions  which 
are  now  before  you. 

What  I  mean  to  say,  sir,  is,  that  in  1848  the  Northern  Demo 
cratic  party  held  these  doctrines,  going  further  than  the  Whig  party 
of  that  day,  reaching  out  their  arms  further  to  get  hold  of  Slavery 
in  the  States — for  I  conceive  their  action  means  nothing  else — in 
some  form,  by  public  opinion,  or  in  some  other  way,  to  restrict  it, 
and  finally  to  eradicate  it.  Well,  they  went  on  their  way  rejoicing. 
But  in  1848,  it  may  be  remembered,  the  Democratic  party  was  car 
ried  captive  to  Babylon ;  Zachary  Taylor  was  elected  President,  and 
he  was  a  Whig.  The  Democracy  hung  their  harps  upon  the  willows, 
by  the  streams  of  Babylon,  and  lifted  up  their  voices  and  wept, 
[laughter]  and  mourned  over  the  slain  of  the  daughters  of  their  peo 
ple.  What  then  happened?  Why,  we  maintained  the  doctrine  that 
you  may  restrict  Slavery ;  we  stood  with  the  fathers,  the  courts,  the 
Congresses  and  the  Presidents,  in  an  unbroken  and  unobstructed  cur 
rent  of  authority,  up  to  the  year  1852.  The  Democrats  of  the 
North  woke  up  suddenly,  and  said  that  Slavery  was  a  very  good 
thing — that  it  helped  to  develop  the  resources  of  the  country,  and 
improve  it. 

I  only  want  to  show  that  the  Republicans  cannot  be  converted 
as  quickly  as  the  Democrats.  I  only  want  to  show  that  we  are  some 
what  obstinate  in  our  old  opinions,  and  that  when  we  go  back,  and 
get  into  the  assemblies  of  the  Fathers — old  men  whose  garments  were 
yet  wet  with  the  waters  of  the  Red  Sea  through  which  they  had 
passed  for  our  deliverance — we  find  that  they  held  the  Republican 
doctrines  with  respect  to  the  Territories.  We  cannot  account  for 
the  sudden  conversion  of  our  Democratic  brethren  of  the  North.  I 
hope  they  are  happy  in  their  new  faith.  I  want  all  men  to  be  happy, 
all  people  to  be  happy — men,  women,  and  children.  I  see  that  they 
are  happy.  For  instance,  if  the  gentleman  from  Georgia  [MR. 
CRAWFORD]  were  to  get  into  a  loving  mood  with  the  Democracy  of 


ON    THE    SLAVERY   QUESTION.  443 

the  North,  he  might  murmur  in  the  ear  of  my  colleague  [MR.  VAL- 
LANDIGHAM  ]  a  verse  from  the  elegies  of  Shenstone : 

"  Dear  region  of  silence  and  shade." 

in  reference  to  the  Democratic  party,  [laughter]  and  then  Mr.  Vallan- 
digham,  in  his  softest  notes  of  affection,  would  take  up  the  strain — 

"Soft  scenes  of  contentment  and  ease, 

Where  I  have  so  happily  strayed, 
Since  naught  in  thy  absence  could  please." 

Now,  it  is  pleasant  to  see  them  thus  dwelling  together ;  for  it  is 
impossible  for  such  a  man  as  I  am,  much  as  I  am  opposed  to  their 
doctrines,  to  fail  to  sympathize  with  men,  when  I  see  they  are  per 
fectly  happy.  Long  may  they  live ;  long  may  they  live ;  for  if  they 
were  to  die  suddenly,  they  might  die  in  their  sins.  [Great  laughter.] 

A  very  curious  question  is  this  thing  of  life,  and  what  a  man 
may  do  in  a  lifetime.  In  1848  the  Democratic  party,  with  their  eye 
balls  bloodshot,  and  the  perspiration  dropping  off  their  noses,  like 
one  of  our  sugar-trees  in  February,  upon  the  south  side  of  a  hill, 
[loud  laughter]  with  their  resolution  in  one  hand,  and  the  torch  of 
Abolition  philosophy  in  the  other,  marched  through  the  country, 
proclaiming  universal  liberty,  and  the  final  advent  of  that  day  when 
Slavery  should  be  no  longer  recognized  in  the  land.  That  is  what 
they  did  in  eight  short  years — between  1848  and  1856.  That  is  but 
a  short  time  in  the  annals  of  this  country.  Suppose  any  man  had 
been  gifted  as  it  is  supposed  the  Wandering  Jew  was;  suppose 
Adam  had  been  cursed  with  a  continued  existence  up  to  this  day, 
and  had  started  off  with  this  doctrine  in  the  beginning,  and  had 
changed  every  eight  years,  how  many  times  would  he  have  changed  ? 
[Laughter.]  Three-score  and  ten  years  seem  to  be  the  allotted  period 
of  man  in  this  age  of  the  world ;  and  in  that  time  he  might  change 
seven  or  eight  times.  Now,  my  Republican  friends,  do  not  be  dis 
couraged.  My  Democratic  friends  upon  the  other  side  of  the 
House,  do  not  let  me  make  you  unhappy.  This  is  the  year  before 
the  Presidential  election.  Do  not  flatter  yourselves  that  your  church 
is  well  founded,  and  that  you  can  go  through  another  Presidential 
election  as  you*  went  through  the  last.  Besides,  man  is  given  to 
change;  mutability  is  stamped  on  all  things.  "Man  is  of  few 
days  and  full  of  sorrow,"  [laughter]  "he  cometh  forth  like  a  flower, 
is  cut  down,  and  fleeth  away  like  a  shadow" — every  eight  years. 
[Roars  of  laughter.] 

In  1850  the  present  fugitive  slave  law  was  passed.     Now,  it  is 


444  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

always  necessary,  in  order  to  understand  the  gyrations  of  political 
parties,  to  know  what  happened  accidentally  or  incidentally  about  a 
particular  time.  A  gentleman,  who  had  been  judge  of  our  Supreme 
Court  of  Ohio,  was  a  Democratic  candidate  for  Governor  of  Ohio  in 
1852.  Mr.  Fillmore  was  then  President,  and  his  was  called  a  Whig 
Administration.  The  extreme  anti-Slavery  people  of  the  State  of 
Ohio  did  not  like  him.  They  abhorred  him.  Mr.  Fillmore  was 
President  at  the  time  of  the  passage  of  these  compromise  measures. 
What  had  the  Democratic  party  to  complain  of  in  them  ?  Nothing. 
The  fugitive  slave  law  had  been  passed,  and  Mr.  Fillmore  had  given 
it  his  approval.  Judge  Wood,  the  candidate  of  the  Democratic 
party,  which  had  a  great  majority  in  Ohio,  was  elected  Governor  of 
the  State,  and  in  his  message  to  the  Legislature  he  said : 

"  While  public  opinion  may  be  divided,  perhaps,  on  the  law  [the  fugi 
tive  slave  bill  ]  there  is,  nevertheless,  another  matter  in  close  connection  with 
it,  on  which  it  is  believed  the  sentiments  of  the  people  are  entirely  united. 
The  area  of  Slavery  must  never  be  extended  in  this  Government  while  the 
voice,  the  united  voice,  and  action  of  Ohio,  in  any  constitutional  form,  can 
stay  it.  Here,  with  propriety,  we  may  take  our  stand.  Thus  far,  proud 
wave,  shalt  thou  advance,  but  no  further  shalt  thou  come." 

What  did  that  mean  ?  You  shall  never  have  another  slave  State 
in  the  Union.  You  shall  never  establish  Slavery  in  another  Territory 
of  the  United  States.  The  political  voice  of  the  Democratic  party 
of  Ohio  had  spoken  in  that  language  in  1848.  In  1852,  the  embod 
iment  of  it  in  the  gubernatorial  office  of  that  State  proclaimed  the 
sentiments  that  I  have  read.  I  do  not  say  now  that  Governor  Wood 
was  wrong,  or  that  the  Democratic  party  was  wrong ;  but  I  only  say 
that  mutability  is  stamped  on  all  human  things. 

Now,  I  ask,  how  can  the  Democratic  people  of  the  North  sit 
still  and  hear  the  Republican  party  denounced  as  disorganizers  and 
disunionists,  and  as  disloyal  to  the  Constitution,  as  they  are 
denounced  every  hour  and  every  day?  The  accusing  eloquence  of 
these  Southern  men  has  been  brought  in  full  volume  of  rich  rhetoric, 
and  launched  on  the  heads  of  the  Republican  party,  while,  as  I  have 
shown,  they  have  only  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  the  Northern 
Democrats.  The  only  difference  is,  that,  as  we  think  we  have 
derived  our  principles  from  the  founders  of  the  Republic,  and  as  our 
doctrines  are  sanctified  by  executive  and  judicial  and  legislative 
approbation,  we  choose  rather  to  follow  these  old  principles  than  to 
take  up  with  new-fangled  doctrines.  Can  you  not  forgive  us  for 


ON    THE    SLAVERY   QUESTION.  445 

that?  If  we  be  mistaken,  can  you  not  suppose  that,  at  least,  we 
think  we  are  doing  right?  Do  you  suppose  we  ever  intend  to  go 
into  your  States,  and  interfere  with  you  there?  There  is  not  a  man 
of  you  who  can  delude  himself  into  the  belief  that  we  have  any  idea 
of  subverting  this  glorious  Union,  which  we  worship  so  much  that 
we  believe  every  word  and  every  syllable  of  the  fathers'  sayings. 
Now,  I  wish  to  announce  that  the  day  has  gone  by  that  these  things 
will  be  heard  without  response.  This  question  shall  be  tried  here,  if 
we  can  ever  organize.  Then  it  shall  be  brought  to  the  standard  of 
constitutional  law,  on  canons  of  construction  that  have  been  admit 
ted  ever  since  the  intellect  of  man  operated  on  the  construction  of 
language;  and  we  will  try  conclusions  with  the  gentlemen  of  the 
South.  Moreover,  if  you  announce,  as  you  have  done,  that  this 
Union  shall  be  dissolved,  that  this  constitutional  Confederacy  of  ours 
shall  be  broken  up,  because  the  people  of  the  North  choose  to  elect 
a  President — a  man  whom  you  do  not  like — we  shall  see  where  the 
treason  really  lies. 

That  is  my  view  of  the  subject.  I  think  I  am  the  most  placable 
man  that  was  ever  born  of  woman.  I  am  prepared  to  enter  into  this 
controversy  with  gentlemen  like  brethren — to  controvert  these  mat 
ters  as  statesmen,  if  we  can  elevate  ourselves  to  that  position,  and 
submit  to  a  candid  world  to  decide  who  is  right.  If  the  world  decide 
against  us,  depend  upon  it  that  we  shall  believe  we  have  misappre 
hended  the  public  opinion  of  the  country,  and  shall  submit  to  what 
ever  award  that  public  opinion  may  make.  That,  in  this  country,  is 
the  final  arbiter  of  all  controversies  of  this  kind,  and  must  be  obeyed. 
In  the  meantime,  I  warn  Democratic  gentlemen  to  remember  that  a 
doctrine  is  now  coming  up  from  the  South,  that  the  inhabitants  of  a 
Territory  have  no  power  to  prohibit  Slavery  therein.  Parties  have 
so  divided  the  people  of  the  country,  that  they  have  begun  to  con 
sider  themselves  enemies ;  and  we,  instead  of  considering  ourselves 
the  "conscript  fathers"  of  the  people,  bound  to  consider  the  inter 
ests,  not  of  one  State,  but  of  all  the  States,  have  commenced  to 
regard  ourselves  as  the  diplomatic  Representatives  of  particular  sec 
tions  of  the  country.  I  hold  that  every  man  on  this  floor  is  the 
Representative  of  every  man,  woman  and  child  in  the  Republic;  and 
every  act  which  he  does,  in  a  national  aspect,  must  operate  for  good 
or  for  evil  on  all.  I  hold  that  a  man  who  acts  for  his  section,  and 
not  for  the  Union,  does  not  comprehend  the  great  duty  that  he  is 
sent  here  to  discharge.  Our  fathers  intended  that  Representatives 


446  SPEECHES   OF   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

should  be  elected  by  districts,  because  then  they  would  be  well 
known  to  the  electors;  but  they  meant  that  when  here,  and  after 
they  had  taken  the  oath,  they  should  be  just  as  much  the  Represent 
atives  of  every  district  in  the  United  States  as  of  the  district  that 
sent  them.  That  is  my  conception  of  our  duty.  That,  I  know,  was 
the  idea  of  the  fathers  who  made  the  Republic,  and  formed  the 
House  as  it  is  now  formed. 

Suppose  us  assembled  together,  Mr.  Clerk,  with  these  feelings, 
and  called  on  to  legislate  for  the  Territories  that  belong  to  us  all — 
that  were  won  by  the  common  blood  and  common  treasure  of  all ; 
what  would  we  then  say?  We  would  say  this:  ''There  are  certain 
portions  of  our  children  in  the  South  who  have  property  which  will 
not  prove  of  any  worth  to  them  in  the  cold  latitudes  of  this  Terri 
tory.  They  cannot  go  there.  There  are  certain  other  children  of 
this  family  of  ours — poor  people,  as  we  call  them,  meaning  those 
who  must  work  for  their  living — and  I  hope  that  men  will  always  be 
compelled  to  work  in  some  way,  with  the  head  or  hand,  for  an  hon 
est  living — and  here  is  the  territory  lying  beyond  the  Mississippi, 
called  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  for  which  Congress  has  power  to  make 
all  needful  rules  and  regulations;  let  them  go  there."  In  the  Terri 
tories  are  emigrants  from  the  State  of  Georgia,  from  Virginia,  from 
all  the  States  of  the  East  and  the  West.  Your  own  constituents  are 
the  relations  and  dear  friends  of  these  people.  So  are  mine.  They 
are  unacquainted  with  each  other ;  a  heterogeneous  people,  not  yet 
homogeneous  enough  to  make  their  own  laws  in  harmony. 

When  we  prohibit  Slavery  in  a  Territory,  we  allow  men  from  all 
the  States  to  go  there  with  the  same  rights  exactly.  While  a  man 
from  a  slave  State  may  not  take  a  slave  into  the  Territory  and  hold 
him  in  Slavery,  neither  can  one  of  my  children  in  Ohio  purchase  a 
negro  in  Kentucky  and  take  him  there,  and  hold  him  as  a  slave.  Is 
not  that  equally  just  to  all  ?  I  know  that  you  say  every  one  should 
go  there  with  his  property,  of  whatever  kind ;  but  I  say  that  this  law 
of  inhibiting  Slavery  is  equal  and  just  to  men  of  every  section. 
Everybody  may  go  there  with  the  same  sort  of  property.  We  make 
no  distinction  between  any.  If  it  be  a  Territory  in  which  slave  labor 
is  unprofitable,  you  ought  to  be  rebuked,  from  the  mere  motive  of 
-economy.  Let  us  look  at  it  as  a  mere  question  of  economy.  The 
whole  country  belongs  to  us,  and  you  are  our  children.  We  are  to 
divide  it  among  you.  Suppose  you  have  one  son  who  can  work  in 
a  warm  climate,  and  another  who  can  work  in  a  cold  climate.  In 


ON    THE    SLAVERY   QUESTION.  447 

dividing  your  estate  between  them,  you  give  to  each  that  portion  of 
it  which  suits  his  wants  in  that  respect.  You  have  one  a  mechanic ; 
you  do  not  give  him  a  farm,  and  set  him  to  work  as  a  farmer.  Nei 
ther  should  you  take  the  negro  to  work  where  his  labor  wrould  be 
unprofitable. 

MR.  REAGAN — I  understand  the  gentleman  is  now  speaking  for  the 
Republican  party. 

MR.  CORWIN — No,  sir ;  I  am  speaking  for  a  leader  of  that  party. 
[Laughter]. 

MR.  REAGAN — Then  I  ask  the  gentleman  for  himself,  and  not  for  the 
Republican  party,  if  he  recognizes  the  right  of  people  owning  slaves  to  go 
into  a  Territory  in  a  Southern  latitude,  and  occupy  that  Territory  with  their 
slaves  with  the  protection  of  the  Government  ? 

MR.  CORWIN — I  will  speak  for  myself.  If  you  acquire  territory 
by  treaty,  and  the  people  in  it  hold  slaves,  I  would  not,  against  their 
will,  interfere  with  Slavery  there.  I  would  act,  in  that  particular, 
just  as  the  Congresses  of  1798  and  1804  acted  in  relation  to  Missis 
sippi  and  Orleans  Territories.  If  Slavery  were  there,  I  would  not 
disturb  it.  I  would  not  interfere  with  the  rights  of  property  against 
the  will  of  the  people ;  and  if  you  get  territory  where  the  white  man 
cannot  work,  I  would  permit  people  of  the  States  to  send  their 
slaves  there;  and  when  there,  certainly,  I  would  protect  them,  if 
protection  were  wanted.  I  agree  with  the  gentlemen  of  the  extreme 
South  in  one  point:  whenever  you  can  show  me  that,  under  the  laws 
and  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  (as  you  phrase  it,  under  the 
Constitution,)  Slavery  is  lawfully  in  a  Territory,  I  hold  it  to  be  a 
duty  to  make  laws  to  protect  property  lawfully  held  anywhere,  if 
such  laws  be  necessary  for  its  protection ;  but  remember,  I  do  not 
believe  the  Constitution  takes  Slavery  into  Territories,  or  anywhere 
else.  Slavery  is  the  creature  of  local,  municipal  law.  Whenever 
you  acquire  a  territory  where  Slavery  exists,  if  you  have  a  treaty 
sanctioned  by  two-thirds  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  you  are 
just  as  sure  of  Slavery  as  we  are  sure  of  what  we  call  "freedom  "  in 
Ohio.  I  dare  say  that  some  of  my  tender-footed  brethren  on  the 
Republican  side  of  the  House  wince  a  little  at  that,  but  I  act  upon 
possibilities  and  upon  probabilities. 

And  there  is  another  thing  which  you  do,  which  is  totally  at 
war  with  one  of  the  fundamental  maxims  of  our  Government.  You 
begin  by  sending  forth  to  the  world  the  very  doctrines  of  Rousseau's 


448  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

social  compact — that  Government  claims  its  rightful  authority  from 
the  consent  of  the  people  governed.  And  then  you  conquer  a  coun 
try,  and  a  part  is  ceded  to  you,  but  no  consent  of  the  people  thus 
ceded  is  ever  asked.  You  seize  them  and  govern  them,  whether 
they  consent  or  not.  You  did  not  ask  the  people  of  California,  or 
New  Mexico  whether  they  were  willing  to  be  American  citizens. 
You  took  the  treaty,  and  you  took  the  lands  and  the  people.  So 
when  you  get  Cuba — which  you  will  not  get  soon ;  but  whenever  you 
do  get  it,  if  you  ever  should,  Slavery  will  be  there ;  and  the  Spanish 
Government,  when  it  cedes  that  island,  will  say  that  you  shall  take 
the  people,  with  all  their  rights  of  property.  That  is  sure  to  be 
done,  if  the  time  ever  arrives  when  you  are  to  acquire  Cuba.  So  if 
you  acquire  territory  where  white  men  cannot  work.  There  are  such 
countries ;  I  have  been  told  so  by  the  best  physicians  I  ever  knew. 
What  do  you  want  with  such  territory,  unless  you  have  slaves,  if 
it  be  true  that  free  negroes  will  not  work  without  coercion?  If  I 
were  the  father  of  all  the  world,  and  I  had  some  children  who 
could  work  in  cold  and  temperate  climates,  I  would  send  them  there 
to  work;  and  if  I  had  other  children  who  could  work  only  in  the 
warmer  portions  of  the  globe,  I  would  send  them  there ;  and  if  they 
would  not  go,  I  would  make  them.  I  am  not  speaking  of  constitu 
tional  law.  I  look  at  society  as  it  is.  What  will  you  do  with  the 
men  who  will  not  work,  and  will  eat?  I  know  what  we  do  with 
them  in  Ohio.  We  send  them  to  the  poor-house,  and  make  them 
work.  Some,  for  reasons  known  to  the  law,  are  sent  to  the  peniten 
tiary,  where  they  are  deprived  of  their  inalienable  right,  to  liberty. 
That  is  a  question  we  cannot  discuss  here.  I  state  it  for  the  benefit 
of  weak  brothers,  who  never  think  about  the  matter.  [Laughter.] 
If  my  white  son  would  not  work  in  the  proper  place  for  him,  I 
would  punish  him ;  and  if  I  had  a  black  man,  who,  like  the  ana 
conda,  fattened  upon  malaria,  and  only  lived  well  in  a  rice  swamp, 
there  I  would  make  him  go. 

I  know  that  I  have  no  right  to  do  anything  of  that  kind.  The 
moral  right,  according  to  our  conceptions  of  God's  will,  meets  with 
a  different  interpretation  in  the  different  countries  of  the  world. 
One  of  the  most  honest,  upright  men  of  all  the  Roman  Emperors  I 
ever  read  of — I  mean  Vespasian — took  thirty  thousand  Jewish  pris 
oners  when  he  went  to  conquer  Judea.  He  pledged  the  honor  of  a 
Roman  general,  that,  if  these  men  surrendered,  they  should  receive 
quarter  and  be  treated  as  prisoners  of  war.  When  he  came  to  hold 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  449 

a  council  of  war  as  to  what  disposition  should  be  made  of  them, 
every  officer  was  for  killing  them.  They  said,  "If  the  Emperor 
trust  them  upon  parole  of  honor,  there  is  no  faith  in  the  Jews,  and 
to-morrow  they  will  be  killing  us."  The  question  was  put  like  the 
celebrated  speech  of  a  Scotch  colonel,  in  the  army  of  Gustavus 
Adolphus.  The  commander-in-chief,  before  a  certain  engagement, 
ordered  that  each  one  of  his  colonels  should  make  a  speech  at  the 
head  of  his  regiment.  The  old  Scotchman,  who  had  never  done 
anything  in  his  life  but  cleave  skulls,  said:  "My  lads,  ye  see  those 
fellows  in  black.  Well,  if  ye  dinna  kill  them,  they  maun  kill  you." 
That  was  a  difficult  question  to  be  decided  by  Vespasian's  council  of 
war.  How  was  it  compromised  ?  The  honor  of  a  Roman  general 
was  pledged.  (So  is  mine.  I  am  sworn  to  obey  the  Constitution 
and  the  laws  of  the  country.)  It  was  agreed  that  one  portion  of  the 
prisoners  should  be  spared  and  treated  as  prisoners  of  war,  that 
another  should  be  sold  into  Slavery,  and  the  remainder  put  to  death. 
Alas !  for  poor  human  nature.  We  will  always  kill  a  man  when  we 
know  he  is  going  to  kill  us.  It  seems,  then,  that  having  no  such 
power  as  I  have  stated,  nations,  like  families,  must  let  each  other 
alone. 

The  slave  trade,  as  I  have  said  already,  was  an  abomination 
from  the  beginning.  It  was  wrong  in  the  beginning.  Year  after 
year  I  have  listened  to  talk,  on  one  side  and  on  the  other,  about  this 
question  of  negro  Slavery.  I  was  a  delegate  to  the  Colonization 
Society,  which  met  at  the  Smithsonian  Institution.  I  thought  I  would 
go  there  and  see  whether  I  could  hear  a  solution  of  this  question. 
One  of  the  most  eloquent  and  learned  men  I  have  listened  to  for  a 
long  time  made  an  address.  He  was  one  of  those  divines  who,  I 
know,  will  preach  what  he  believes.  He  said  that  the  finger  of  God 
was  plainly  to  be  seen  in  the  slave  trade.  In  old  times,  Governor 
Oglethorpe  endeavored  to  keep  Slavery  out  of  Georgia,  as  every 
man  knows  who  has  read  the  history  of  that  State.  It  was  brought 
there,  and  he  could  not  keep  it  out.  Whitfield,  that  eminent  divine, 
was  there.  He  told  Oglethorpe  to  let  Slavery  alone,  for  the  hand  of 
the  Almighty  was  in  it.  He  said,  "we  have  been  trying  to  Chris 
tianize  the  world ;  we  are  at  it  now ;  and  what  progress  have  our 
missionaries  made?  Very  little,  or  none.  Let  the  poor  negro  be 
brought  into  this  country,  and  whether  his  master  likes  it  or  not,  he 
will  imbibe  some  idea  of  the  morals  of  Christianity,  and  in  due  time 
the  right  missionaries  will  be  those  of  the  black  race,  to  return 
30 


450  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

among  their  own  color.  Thus,  that  wicked  man  who  sold  this  people 
into  Slavery,  in  the  hands  of  Heaven  will  have  proved  the  instru 
ment  of  bringing  them  to  Christianity  and  civilization." 

If  the  finger  of  God  be  in  Slavery,  let  the  Southern  man  take 
care  how  he  treats  these  missionaries,  these  instruments  of  Heaven 
for  the  great  work  of  Christianizing  the  heathen  African.  Keep 
them  in  Slavery  if  you  will ;  but,  as  that  Whitfield  said,  you  cannot 
take  a  negro  and  keep  him  ten  years  in  this  country  without  his 
becoming  a  more  enlightened  man  than  when  he  left  the  shores  of 
Africa.  Take  care  that  you  give  him  freely  that  light.  The  pres 
ent  generation  of  negroes  sprung  from  those  brought  here  a  cen 
tury  ago,  will,  I  believe,  compare  favorably  with  the  most  intelligent 
of  their  own  countrymen  in  Africa.  Let  us,  then,  not  despair  of  the 
ultimate  fortunes  of  the  negro  races.  We  hear  of  what  is  doing  in 
Liberia.  I  must  remind  my  boastful  white  brethren  here,  that  the 
history  of  the  legislation  in  that  black  colony  would  warrant  any  one 
in  the  conclusion  that  our  colored  brethren  there  would  have  organ 
ized  their  Congress  with  more  temperate  judgment,  and  in  much 
shorter  time,  than  we  have  consumed  in  our  efforts,  which,  up  to 
this  time,  seem  to  promise  no  very  speedy  result.  [Laughter]. 

Who  knows,  sir,  but  that  Slavery  may  accomplish  the  great 
work  of  Christianizing  and  civilizing  the  African  race  ?  May  we  not 
hope,  that  while  these  people  are  content,  even  in  Slavery,  to 
advance  in  civilization  in  this  country,  and  to  develop  the  resources  of 
countries  which  it  is  said  can  be  developed  by  slave  labor  alone,  the 
great  ends  and  purposes  of  Him  who  sits  enthroned  in  the  circle  of 
the  Heavens  will  be  accomplished  by  some  agency  to  us  as  yet 
unknown. 

That  wonderful  man,  Cyrus,  did  not  know  that  he  was  execut 
ing  the  commands  of  God,  when  he  invaded  Babylon,  as  it  had  been 
foretold.  So  it  may  be  that  you,  who  so  much  admire  the  institution 
of  Slavery — and  I  do  not  mean  to  discuss  its  merits  here — like 
Cyrus,  may  be  the  chosen  instruments,  even  against  your  own 
wishes,  to  work  out  the  purposes  of  Almighty  God.  When  your 
negroes  shall  have  reached  the  point  of  civilization  which  will  fit 
them  to  enjoy  that  portion  of  liberty  which  a  rational  Government 
may  give  them,  then  they  will  no  longer  be  your  slaves.  They  will 
then  stay  and  work  with  you  for  moderate  wages,  cheaper  than  the 
white  man  can,  or  they  will  go  abroad,  such  of  them  as  choose  to 
go,  on  the  great  errand  of  the  great  Master  of  us  all,  to  carry  the 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  451 

light  of  His  Gospel  to  a  benighted  people.  I  think  that  looks  plau 
sible  enough.  Nothing  in  this  debate  has  given  me  so  much  pleas 
ure  as  listening  to  the  gentleman  from  Louisiana  [MR.  DAVIDSON], 
when  he  told  us  upon  this  side  of  the  House,  that  the  Gospel  is 
preached  upon  his  plantation  in  Louisiana,  just  as  it  is  preached  in 
the  churches  in  the  North.  And  so  Southern  members  assure  me  it 
is  everywhere  in  the  South.  When  the  master  conducts  himself  in 
that  way  to  his  poor,  ignorant  slave,  he  will  be  enlightened. 

If  it  be  possible  for  the  black  man — and  that  is  a  question  upon 
which  I  am  no  philosopher — to  rise  by  slow  and  gradual  degrees  to 
that  intellectual  and  moral  eminence  which  shall  qualify  him  for 
another  state  than  that  which  he  now  occupies,  depend  upon  it,  mas 
ters,  when  the  time  comes,  will  be  willing  to  assent  to  the  change  of 
his  condition.  So  I  think  Slavery,  so  I  think  history,  teaches  us. 
But  in  the  meantime  I  admit  that  there  are  a  great  many  evils  con 
nected  with  the  system. 

I  assure  gentlemen  of  the  South  that  that  kind  of  discipline 
which  our  education  and  mode  of  life  at  the  North  give  us  does  not 
allow  us  to  be  quite  so  free  in  the  indulgence  of  these  fits  of  ill  tem 
per  which  come  upon  us  at  times,  whether  in  the  North  or  South, 
or  in  the  expression  which  may  be  given  in  words  to  that  frailty. 
You  are  good  and  honorable  gentlemen,  but  you  make  entirely  too 
much  noise  for  our  Northern  tastes,  [laughter]  and  you  are  "too 
sudden  and  quick  in  quarrel."  But  do  not  misunderstand  the  people 
of  the  North.  Their  education  and  training  teach  them  to  govern 
their  passions.  That  is  just  the  difference  between  us.  But  when 
the  quarrel  does  come,  which  to  them  appears  just,  why,  then  I  will 
not  enter  into  recognizance  that  they  will  keep  the  peace.  I  have 
seen  it  tried  before  now. 

Why,  then,  shall  we  not  have  harmony?  I  assert  here — and  I 
care  not  for  anybody's  criticism — that  this  Slavery  question  would 
not  exist  two  hours  in  this  House,  if  you  passed  a  resolution  not  to 
acquire  any  more  territory  for  ten  years.  If  it  could  be  that  there 
should  not  be  another  Presidential  election  for  ten  years,  that  of 
itself  would  bring  peace.  The  cause  of  discontent  and  strife,  in  a 
great  measure,  is,  that  we  must  have  a  Presidential  election  in  a  few 
months.  You  do  not  want  any  more  slave  territory.  How  will  you 
fill  up  Texas,  which  has  been  generously  devoted  for  all  the  surplus 
slaves  for  fifty  years?  Do  you  expect  to  find  a  milder  climate  or  a 
better  latitude?  You  quarrel  with  the  people  of  the  North  about 


452  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

the  settlement  of  Kansas.  There  are  four  States  for  you  to  fill, 
where  you  can  go  unquestioned.  Go  first  and  bring  into  cultivation 
those  fertile  lands  yet  unoccupied,  before  you  think  of  another 
expansion  of  territory.  You  will  not  go  there,  but  stand  here  quar 
reling  with  us,  Northern  Republicans,  because  you  cannot  get  more 
territory.  If  you  had  more  territory,  you  could  not  settle  it,  because 
you  have  not  the  slave  labor. 

A  gentleman  upon  the  other  side  of  the  House  called  out  to  us 
the  other  day:  "Disband  your  Republican  party;  disband  it;  you 
threaten  the  peace  of  the  Union."  Sir,  I  am  not  afraid  of  this 
Union.  I  see  plainly  enough  that  I  can  save  it  in  the  last  extremity, 
just  by  letting  a  Democrat  be  elected  President.  [Great  laughter.] 
Ever  since  I  found  that  out,  I  have  cared  little  what  you  say  about 
danger  to  the  Union.  The  gentleman  from  Mississippi  [MR.  BARKS- 
DALE]  declared,  also,  that  his  State  would  go  right  off  out  of  the 
Union,  in  the  event  of  the  election  of  Mr.  Seward.  The  people  of 
the  State  of  Mississippi  may  walk  out,  but  the  State  never  will. 
Why,  sir,  I  have  heard  of  this  thing  ever  since  I  have  heard  any 
thing  in  public  affairs.  In  1833,  South  Carolina  was  determined  to 
go  out  of  the  Union,  because  of  what  she  deemed  an  excessive  duty 
on  foreign  goods.  Pennsylvania  was  going  out  because  we  taxed 
her  whisky  in  1794;  and  Massachusetts  thought  the  Union  was 
endangered  when  Louisiana  was  purchased.  Each  and  all  of  these 
States  yet  remain,  and  are,  I  trust,  loyal  to  the  Union.  I  have  lived 
through  three  dissolutions  of  the  Union  myself,  [great  laughter]  and 
the  Union  is  stronger  to-day  than  when  its  dissolution  was  first 
threatened — stronger  than  it  was  in  the  beginning.  The  State  of 
Mississippi  is  a  glorious  little  State,  covered  all  over  with  cotton ; 
and,  in  my  judgment,  she  will  be  "cotton  to"  the  Union  to  the  last. 
[Laughter.]  All  these  planets  which  revolve  around  this  great  con 
stitutional  center,  whence  truth,  light,  political  knowledge  radiate, 
may  threaten  to  fly  off  occasionally.  Mississippi  may  seem  to  fly 
off  in  some  eccentric  orbit,  but  she  will  soon  return  to  her  proper 
perihelion.  I  do  not  say  how  she  will  do  it,  but  she  certainly  will 
do  it  of  her  own  accord.  Let  us  then  hear  no  more  of  this  angry 
talk  about  disunion ;  but,  like  men,  like  brethren,  as  we  are,  work 
earnestly  and  happily  together  for  the  common  good  of  all. 

As  to  this  question  of  Territorial  legislation,  touching  Slavery  in 
the  Territories,  let  gentlemen  pause  upon  that,  and  consider  before 
they  rush  to  conclusions.  I  tell  gentlemen  of  the  South — and  the 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  453 

day  will  come  when  they  will  remember  my  advice — not  to  trust 
Northern  people  to  make  laws  of  their  own  in  the  Territories  for  the 
exclusion  or  protection  of  Slavery.  I  do  not  care  where  you  go,  in 
any  latitude  under  the  heavens  where  a  white  man  can  live  and  work, 
the  Yankees  will  go  there  too.  Wherever  clocks  can  be  used  or  sold, 
there  they  will  be.  If  they  come  to  learn  that  it  is  the  law  of  the 
Republic  that  the  status  of  the  country  is  fixed  forever  by  the  first 
inhabitants,  instead  of  settling  that  status  here,  among  men  who  are 
responsible  to  the  country  and  to  history,  they  will  settle  the  ques 
tion  as  they  did  in  Kansas.  They  will  always  beat  you,  if  you  open 
the  question  in  that  way.  Let  this  calm,  deliberate,  legislative 
assembly  of  gentlemen,  who  legislate  for  the  whole  Union  of  thirty 
millions  of  people — let  them  determine  whether  it  is  better  that  Slav 
ery  should  go  there  or  not ;  let  that  question  come  here,  where  we 
look  at  this  great  country  and  all  the  Territories  we  have,  and  all  we 
may  ever  acquire,  as  common  patrimony,  alike  of  all  the  States,  and 
all  the  people  we  represent. 

The  population  which  usually  goes  into  new  Territories  is  gen 
erally  led  by  an  eager  and  sometimes  wild  spirit  of  adventure.  The 
people  will  keep  out  the  negro,  because  they  have  no  negroes  of 
their  own,  no  slaves  of  their  own.  I  care  not  whether  the  Territory 
be  at  the  north  pole  or  near  the  equator,  they  will  go  there,  and  will 
keep  your  negroes  out,  if  you  allow  them  to  determine  whether  Slavery 
shall  be  there  or  not.  I  should  think  that  any  man  who  has  looked 
at  the  history  of  Kansas  for  the  last  three  years,  with  reference  to 
this  matter,  will  not  doubt  my  conclusions.  In  consequence  of  Con 
gress  giving  up  this  great  conservative  power  to  make  laws  for  an 
uncongenial,  heterogeneous  people,  civil  war  raged  for  three  years 
over  the  beautiful  plains  of  Kansas,  where  there  should  have  been 
nothing  heard  but  the  jocund  whistle  of  the  plowman  driving  his 
team  to  the  field,  and  where  nothing  else  or  worse  would  have  been 
heard,  if  Congress  had  only  made  laws  to  govern  that  Territory,  and 
sent  its  Governor,  and,  if  necessary,  troops,  to  execute  the  law.  You 
made  an  experiment  there,  and  you  know  the  result. 

What  have  you  in  another  Territory  now  ?  You  say  you  cannot 
make  laws  for  Utah.  You  have  denied  the  power  of  Congress  to 
make  laws  for  the  Territories.  What  is  Utah  ?  A  blot  on  the  fair 
pages  of  your  history,  which  all  the  waters  of  Lethe  can  never  wash 
out — a  foul,  incestuous  den  of  miserable  adulterers  and  murderers — 
a  disgrace  to  a  civilized  and  Christian  country.  That  is  what  comes 


454  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

of  this  glorious  new  doctrine  which  you  have  propagated  on  all  sides. 
That  comes  of  your  parting  with  the  wise  usages  and  the  wise  insti 
tutions  of  your  fathers ;  and  so  it  will  ever  be,  the  moment  you  aban 
don  those  well-established,  constitutional  rules  fixed  by  the  founders 
of  the  Republic.  You  have  abandoned  the  great  highways  of  the 
past — the  good  macadamized  roads  made  for  you — every  mile-stone 
of  which  was  red  with  revolutionary  blood;  you  have  strayed  away 
from  them,  and  wandered  after  wills-o'-the-wisp  into  swamps  and 
by-paths.  All  that  the  Republican  party  wish  to  do,  is  to  stand  up 
and  call  you  back  as  a  mother  calls  to  her  lost  child,  and  put  you  on 
the  safe  old  road  again.  They  call  upon  you  to  come  out  of  the 
wilderness ;  to  quit  the  shedding  of  each  other's  blood  in  fratricidal 
war  for  the  right  to  have  this  or  that  law ;  to  let  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States,  who  represent  the  fathers,  the  brothers,  the  sisters,  of 
the  peaceful  emigrants  who  have  gone  into  the  Territories,  consider 
what  is  best  for  their  children  and  friends.  But  abandon,  as  you 
have  abandoned,  the  institutions  of  your  Fathers,  and  there  will  be 
neither  peace  nor  progress  in  the  Territories.  There  will  be  strife 
here,  and  civil  war  there,  and  wild  confusion  will  reign  supreme. 

The  wise  prophet  of  Israel,  after  he  came  down  from  the  moun 
tain  with  the  law  in  his  hand,  and  found  his  brother  Aaron  worhip- 
ing  a  golden  calf  which  he  had  made,  was  so  angry  that  he  threw 
down  the  tables  of  the  law,  and  broke  them.  He  determined  that 
that  wicked  people  should  never  have  an  opportunity  of  worshiping 
any  more  golden  calves ;  he  made  all  the  women  bring  in  their  trink 
ets  and  golden  ornaments,  and  melted  them  down  in  one  mass.  Let 
us,  in  the  same  spirit,  bring  in  these  miserable  idols  of  ours ;  sacrifice 
them  on  the  common  altar  of  our  country ;  shake  hands,  forget  and 
forgive. 

And  now,  before  I  sit  down,  let  me  ask  again,  are  the  destinies 
of  this  mighty  Republic  to  turn  on  the  publication  of  a  pamphlet? 
You  know  that  the  gentleman  whom  we  have  nominated  will  make  a 
just  and  impartial  Speaker.  Concede  that  for  once.  Concede  that 
we  will  have  to  elect  by  a  plurality.  I  think  that,  if  we  could,  we 
ought  to  elect  by  a  majority.  There  is  something  symmetrical  in  it. 
You  say,  he  should  be  elected  by  a  majority,  because,  in  the  happen 
ing  of  two  or  three  very  remote  contingencies,  he  may  become  Pres 
ident  of  the  United  States.  But,  as  I  said  yesterday,  no  President 
or  Vice-President  will  ever  be  found,  both  amiable  enough  to  die  and 
let  the  Speaker  take  that  place.  We  will  not  consider  that  contin- 


ON    THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  455 

gency.  If  we  cannot  agree  upon  one  man,  is  it  possible,  in  the 
name  of  the  American  people,  that  we  cannot  find  some  man  in  this 
Congress  who  is  fit  to  preside  over  this  House? 

It  has  been  stated  that  I  said  that  I  would  vote  for  Mr.  Sherman 
till  the  last  trump  should  sound.  A  better  man  than  I  am  changed 
his  mind.  David,  King  of  Israel,  repented  of  what  he  said,  when 
he  remarked,  "I  have  said,  in  my  haste,  that  all  men  are  liars."  I 
concede  that  fact,  when  I  state  now  that  I  am  willing  to  vote  for  any 
one  almost  who  can  be  elected.  If  this  protracted  contest  means  any. 
thing,  we  cannot  elect  a  Republican ;  we  cannot  elect  a  Lecompton 
Democrat;  we  cannot  elect  an  anti-Lecompton  Democrat;  and  though 
there  may  be  as  many  shades  of  party  as  Jacob  had  stripes  in  his  cat. 
tie — I  do  not  know  how  many — it  seems  that  we  cannot  elect  any 
one  of  them.  I  know  of  but  one  man  in  this  House  who  does  not 
belong  to  any  party,  and  I  have  thought  that  perhaps  we  might  unite 
upon  him.  The  gentleman  from  New  York  [MR.  HORACE  F.  CLARK] 
belongs  to  no  party ;  he  will  not  act  with  any  party ;  does  not  love 
any  party ;  does  not  hate  any  party ;  does  not  care  for  any  party. 
[Great  laughter].  Why  not  elect  him  ? 

Mr.  Clerk,  I  believe  that  I  am  abusing  my  priviles  here.  [Cries 
of  "Go  on !"] 

I  hope  the  observations  which  I  have  made,  Mr.  Clerk,  forced 
from  me  without  any  of  that  preparation  which  is  usual,  may  not  be 
entirely  worthless.  Whether  we  consider  this  ever-recurring  ques 
tion  of  Slavery  as  resting  within  our  unrestricted  discretion,  or 
whether  we  regard  it  as  fixed  and  limited  by  constitutional  law — in 
either  aspect,  with  good  sense,  guided  by  true  patriotism — there  is 
nothing  to  be  feared.  The  way  through  the  future  is,  in  my  judg 
ment,  open,  clear  and  plain.  We  cannot  be  so  weak  as  to  give  way 
to  childish  fears,  or  sink  into  lethargy  and  despair.  On  the  contrary, 
let  us  "gird  up  our  loins"  to  the  work  before  us;  for  upon  us  this 
duty  is  devolved.  We  cannot  escape  from  it  if  we  would.  Let  us, 
above  all,  preserve  our  Constitution  inviolate,  and  the  Union  which 
it  created  unbroken.  By  the  lights  they  give  us,  with  the  aids  of  an 
enlightened  religion,  and  an  ever-improving  Christian  philosophy,  let 
us  march  onward  and  onward  in  the  great  highway  of  social  prog 
ress.  Let  us  always  keep  in  the  advancing  car  of  that  progress — 
our  book  of  Constitutions  and  our  Bible.  Like  the  Jews  of  old,  let 
the  ark  of  the  covenant  be  advanced  to  the  front  in  our  march. 
With  these  to  guide  us,  I  feel  the  proud  assurance  that  our  free  prin- 


456  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

ciples  will  take  their  way  through  all  coming  time ;  and  before  them 
I  do  believe  that  the  cloven-footed  altars  of  oppression,  all  over  the 
world,  will  fall  down,  as  Dagon  of  old  fell  down,  and  was  shivered  to 
pieces  in  the  presence  of  the  ark  of  the  living  God. 

But  if  we  halt  in  this  great  exodus  of  the  nations ;  if  we  are 
broken  into  inconsiderable  fragments,  and  ultimately  dispersed, 
through  our  follies  of  this  day,  what  imagination  can  compass  the 
frightful  enormity  of  our  crime !  What  would  the  world  say  of  this 
unpardonable  sin  ?  Rather  than  this,  we  should  pray  the  kind  Father 
of  all,  even  His  wicked  children,  to  visit  us  with  the  last  and  worst  of 
all  the  afflictions  that  fall  on  sin  and  sinful  man.  Better  for  us  would 
it  be  that  the  fruitful  earth  should  be  smitten  for  a  season  with  bar 
renness,  and  become  dry  dust,  and  refuse  its  annual  fruits;  better 
that  the  heavens  for  a  time  should  become  brass,  and  the  ear  of  God 
deaf  to  our  prayers ;  better  that  Famine,  with  her  cold  and  skinny 
fingers,  should  lay  hold  upon  the  throats  of  our  wives  and  children ; 
better  that  God  should  commission  the  Angel  of  Destruction  to  go 
forth  over  the  land,  scattering  pestilence  and  death  from  his  dusky 
wing,  than  that  we  should  prove  faithless  to  our  trust,  and  by  that 
means  our  light  should  be  quenched,  our  liberties  destroyed,  and  all 
our  bright  hopes  die  out  in  that  night  which  knows  no  coming  dawn. 


ON  THE  REPORT  OF  THE  COMMITTEE  OF 
THIRTY-THREE. 


The  second  session  of  the  Thirty-Sixth  Congress  met  in  December,  1860,  after 
the  election  but  before  the  inauguration  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  The  distracted  state  of 
the  country  immediately  engaged  the  attention  of  both  branches.  In  the  House  a  mo 
tion  was  made,  "That  so  much  of  the  President's  message  as  relates  to  the  present 
perilous  condition  of  the  country,  be  referred  to  a  special  committee  of  one  from  each 
State."  This  was  adopted  by  a  vote  of — ayes,  145 ;  noes,  38.  The  committee  was 
appointed  by  the  Speaker ;  it  consisted  of  thirty-three  members,  with  Mr.  CORWIN  as 
chairman,  and  it  embraced  some  of  the  most  eminent  men  in  the  nation.  On  January 
I4th,  1861,  Mr.  CORWIN  presented  to  the  House  the  report  of  the  committee,  which 
consisted  of  a  series  of  resolutions  and  a  joint  resolution  to  amend  the  constitution  of 
the  United  States ;  an  act  for  the  admission  of  New  Mexico  into  the  Union ;  and  an 
amendment  to  the  fugitive  slave  law,  and  the  law  relating  to  fugitives  from  justice. 
The  report  of  "  the  committee  of  thirty-three"  being  under  consideration  on  January 
2ist,  1861,  Mr.  CORWIN  spoke  as  follows: 

Mr.  SPEAKER  :  It  is  not  my  intention  to  occupy  the  time  of 
the  House  this  morning  with  the  submission  to  them  of  remarks 
upon  many  of  the  topics  which  are  naturally  associated  with  the 
great  questions  before  us.  I  shall  have  discharged  the  duty  which  I 
feel  incumbent  upon  me  as  one  of  the  committee  of  thirty-three, 
when  I  have  presented  the  subjects  which  have  been  introduced, 
with  a  few  very  brief  explanations  of  the  motives  which  have 
induced  the  committee  to  recommend  the  adoption  of  the  resolu 
tions  and  bills  which  accompany  their  report. 

It  is  about  thirty  years  since  I  first  took  a  seat  in  this  House  as 
a  representative  from  the  Congressional  district  in  Ohio  in  which  I 
now  reside.  Two  years  after  that  time  I  was  called  upon  to  act  in 
my  representative  character  upon  a  subject  very  nearly  akin  to,  if 
not  identical  with,  that  which  now  widely  distracts  the  public  mind 
from  one  end  of  this  vastly-extended  republic  to  the  other.  At  the 
time  to  which  I  now  allude,  a  portion  of  the  southern  people  of  this 
country,  led  on  then,  as  now,  by  the  State  of  South  Carolina,  had 
declared,  in  a  convention  of  their  people,  that  the  then  existing  laws 

levying  duties    upon    foreign   merchandise,    in   its   judgment  being 

(457) 


458  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

unconstitutional,  had  absolved  that  State  from  its  obligations  to  the 
Union.  She  did  not  then  actually  attempt  to  secede.  I  believe 
that  was  not  the  term  then  used  to  signify  the  action  of  that  State. 
She  proposed  to  strike  down  the  laws  of  the  United  States  within 
her  limits ;  and  this  was  denominated  nullification. 

This  movement  of  South  Carolina  met  with  little  sympathy  at 
that  time  from  the  other  southern  States  of  the  Union.  Other 
causes  for  the  present  distraction  of  our  Union  are  now  assigned ; 
but  the  same  mode  of  accomplishing  it  is  adopted  substantially.  It 
was  then  alleged  that  a  supposed  unconstitutional  act  of  Congress 
was  to  be  adjudged  of  and  decided  upon  in  the  last  resort  by  any 
and  every  State  in  the  Union  that  might  choose  to  assume  jurisdic 
tion  of  the  question.  South  Carolina  had  determined  for  herself, 
and  her  decision  was  then  announced,  that  this  act,  levying  duties  on 
foreign  merchandise,  was  unconstitutional,  and,  in  its  nature  and  in 
its  tendency  oppressive  to  the  people  of  that  section  of  the  Union. 
Therefore  she  would  withdraw  herself  from  the  Union,  and  establish 
an  independent  republic  of  her  own.  The  doctrine  now  asserted  in 
some  of  the  States  is,  that  an  unconstitutional  act,  passed  by  the 
Legislature  of  a  State,  is  of  itself  a  ground  for  a  withdrawal  from 
the  Union  whenever  any  State  shall  choose  to  consider  such  law 
a  violation  of  any  provision  contained  in  our  Federal  Constitution. 

I  little  thought,  when  that  unhappy  difficulty  which  so  much 
excited  the  public  mind  from  1831  to  1833  was  composed,  that  at 
the  near  termination  of  my  natural  life,  and  the  still  nearer  approach 
to  the  close  of  political  service,  I  should  ever  be  called  upon  again 
to  give  a  vote  or  utter  a  word  which  would  have  any  application  to 
a  question  of  such  fearful  import.  But,  sir,  I  believe  the  pages  of 
history  will  show  that  in  every  stage  of  human  progress,  from  the 
beginning  of  the  time  when  man  began  to  be  an  occupant  of  this 
earth,  his  restless  and  unquiet  nature,  while  it  has  prompted  him  to 
great  improvements,  has  often  led  him  to  forsake  the  present  good 
for  some  vague  hope,  never  to  be  realized,  in  the  future. 

Any  one  who  had  read  the  history  of  one  of  the  greatest 
of  the  empires  of  the  world,  especially  of  its  decline  and  its  disper 
sion  into  fragrants,  might  have  well  suspected  that  at  some  period  in 
the  history  of  this  confederated  republic  a  tendency  to  fly  off  from 
the  center  of  attraction  would,  sooner  or  later,  be  exhibited  in  some 
of  the  States ;  and  that  from  that  cause,  as  the  makers  of  the  Con 
stitution,  some  of  them  did  believe,  we  might  expect,  at  some  day 


OX    REPORT    OP   COMMITTEE    OF    THIRTY-THREE.  459 

or   other,   an    attempted    dissolution    of  the  bonds  which    hold    us 
together  as  one  people. 

Such  is  now  our  condition,  and  that  unhappy  state  of  things  has 
this  day  brought  us  to  the  consideration  of  the  means  by  which  the 
threatened  catastrophe  may  be  averted.  We  are  called  on  to 
exhaust  every  means  possible  to  accomplish  a  peaceful  adjustment  of 
present  difficulties,  and  if  these  should  fail  to  effect  the  desired  end, 
then  we  must  determine  whether  this  government  has  the  right  and 
the  power  to  enforce  the  laws  of  the  United  States,  and  hold  and 
protect  the  property  of  the  United  States  any  and  everywhere 
within  its  territorial  limits. 

The  word  coercion  has  been  made  one  of  very  fearful  import  by 
some,  when  used  to  signify  the  power  of  the  general  government 
to  compel  individual  obedience  to  its  laws.  Much  useless  contro 
versy,  I  think,  has  been  had  on  both  sides  of  the  House  touching 
the  power  of  the  United  States  to  coerce  a  State.  The  Constitution, 
in  my  judgment,  does  not  look  to  the  coercion  of  a  State.  It  only 
proposes  to  enforce  obedience  to  its  provisions  upon  the  people  of 
the  United  States,  and  I  have  always  supposed  it  conveyed  to  the 
United  States  Government  the  right  and  the  power  to  resist  and 
punish  all  forcible  opposition  to  its  laws,  offered  by  any  number  of 
persons,  whether  acting  upon  their  own  responsibility,  or  under  the 
assumed  authority  of  any  State  or  combination  of  States. 

But  it  is  not  my  purpose  now  to  discuss  this  question.  My 
mission  to-day  is  one  of  conciliation,  of  peace.  If  grievances,  real 
or  imaginary,  are  presented  to  me  by  one  or  more  members  of  this 
great  family  of  States,  I  am  ready  to  consider  them,  and  employ 
every  resource  within  my  power  to  remove  or  redress  wrong,  if 
wrong  has  been  done ;  to  soothe  anger  if  it  exists ;  to  remove 
unfounded  prejudices,  or  explain  unhappy  misunderstandings;  to 
heal  wounds  if  there  be  any ;  not  to  irritate  and  intensify  them ;  if 
danger  is  apprehended  to  the  rights  of  any  portion  of  the  people,  I 
am  ready  to  shield  them  from  even  the  apprehension  of  danger,  by 
fortifying  their  rights  with  further  constitutional  guarantees.  Show 
me  the  wrong,  and  I  will  redress  it  if  in  my  power ;  point  out  the 
danger,  and  I,  if  possible,  will  offer  every  security  against  it,  and 
pledge  every  power  of  the  government  to  avert  it.  To  effect  these 
beneficent  purposes,  the  committee  have  diligently  labored,  and  have 
instructed  me  to  report  the  bills  and  resolutions  before  us. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  cannot,  will  not,  give  up  the  belief  that,  if  the 


460  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

people  of  the  United  States,  in  the  States  north  as  well  as  in  the 
States  south,  can  be  satisfied  that  the  causes  of  complaint  which 
have  led  to  these  strange  and,  as  I  think,  unwarrantable  movements 
of  the  southern  States,  have  any  foundation  in  fact,  these  causes  can 
be,  and  will  be,  at  once  removed.  These,  sir,  are  the  grounds  of 
my  hope  that  public  tranquility  will  again  be  restored. 

And  now,  Mr.  Speaker,  I.  proceed  to  the  consideration  of  two 
or  three  topics  embraced  in  the  report,  which,  when,  I  have 
explained,  I  shall  for  the  present  resign  this  debate  into  other  hands. 
We  are  compelled,  in  matters  of  this  kind,  to  resort  to  a  species  of 
information  which  is  not  always  accurate,  but  the  best  at  our  com 
mand.  Itjhas  been  alleged,  sir,  that  unconstitutional  laws  have  been — 
passed  by  several  of  the  States  of  this  Union  which  have  a  tendency 
to  ernbarrasss  the  operation  of  the  laws  of  the  United  States,  and 
especially  that  for  the  recapture  of  fugitives  from  labor.  It  is 
alleged  that  such  acts,  by  some,  or  by  many  of  the  States,  were  in 
the  judgment  of  the  southern  States,  sufficent  cause  for  dissolving 
their  connection  with  the  Union.  These  laws  have  acquired  the 
popular  name  of  personal  liberty  laws.  They  have  been  so  denomi 
nated  by  the  popular  language  of  several  of  the  States.  And  here, 
Mr.  Speaker,  you  will  find  the  position  which  we  now  occupy^differs 
in  principle  very  little,  if  at  all,  from  that  in  which  we  were  placed 
by  the  attempted  secession  of  South  Carolina  in  1832-33. 

Then  it  was  alleged  that  a  law  passed  by  Congress  which  had  a 
prejudicial  effect  on  any  portion  of  the  Union,  and  adjudged  by  a 
State  convention  to  be  unconstitutional,  was,  of  itself,  sufficient  rea 
son  for  dissolving  the  Union.  Now,  it  is  said,  if  a  State  should  pass 
a  Taw  unconstitutional  in  its  character,  that  the  proper  judicature  to 
determine  that  unconstitutionality  is  a  sovereign  State ;  and  that  if 
that  be  so,  then  a  State  has  the  right  to  sever  its  connection  with  the 
Union,  and  carry  its  citizens  away  from  all  allegiance  to  the  United 
States  Government. 

Undoubtedly,  if  this  had  been  the  case,  if  either  of  these  had 
been  considered  a  sufficient  cause  for  breaking  up  the  Union  of  the 
States,  there  have  been  a  thousand  cases  which  might  have  been 
seized  upon  with  just  as  much  propriety  as  now.  The  reports  of 
your  judicial  courts,  State  and  Federal,  are  full  of  decisions  which 
have  declared  that  such  and  such  laws  of  the  United  States  were 
unconstitutional ;  that  such  and  such  laws  of  the  States  over  which 
that  judicatory  extended  were  also  unconstitutional.  It  was  for  the 


ON    REPORT    OF    COMMITTEE  OF    THIRTY-THREE.  461 

very  purpose  of  having  a  tribunal  to  whom  such  questions  should  be 
referred,  whose  decisions  upon  such  subjects  should  protect  the  citi 
zens  against  violations  of  the  constitutions,  State  and  Federal,  that 
the  supreme  courts  of  the  several  States,  and  the  United  States  cir 
cuit  and  supreme  courts  were  established ;  and  the  supreme  court  of 
the  United  States  was  established  to  protect  the  rights  of  the  people 
of  all  the  States  existing  under  the  Constitution,  treaties,  and  laws  of 
the.  United  States,  against  encroachment,  by  either  Congress  or  the 
States.  To  that  arbitrament,  ever  since  the  adoption  of  the  Consti 
tution,  it  has  been  the  habit  of  the  peace-loving  people  of  the  coun 
try  to  submit  any  dispute  of  that  kind ;  and  hitherto  it  has  shown 
itself  to  be  well  and  wisely  adapted  to  the  great  duty  assigned  to  it. 
But  now  it  is  said  that  the  States  are  the  proper  tribunals  by  which 
such  questions  should  be  decided.  If  that  be  so,  then  the  objects  of 
the  great  men  who  made  this  Constitution  were  not  attained. 

The  alleged  unconstitutional  laws  to  which  I  have  adverted  were 
enacted  by  the  States,  as  they  assert,  for  the  laudable  purpose  of 
protecting  the  free  people  of  those  States  from  possible  danger  aris 
ing  out  of  the  manner  in  which  the  laws  of  Congress  touching  the 
recapture  of  fugitive  slaves  was  executed  in  their  limits.  I  might 
here  say  that  I  have  not  approved  of  many  of  these  laws  myself; 
but  it  is  riot  for  me  to  arraign  the  Legislature  of  a  sovereign  State, 
nor  will  I  lightly  condemn  any  attempt  it  may  make  to  preserve 
what  it  deems  a  just  right  of  the  people  over  whom  its  legislative 
jurisdiction  extends.  But,  is  it  not  obvious — just  as  obvious  to  my 
brethren  of  the  South  as  it  can  be  to  anybody  else — that  if  any  such 
law  has  ever  existed  upon  the  statute-book  of  any  State  of  the 
Union,  such  a  law  was  totally  void,  unless  you  assume  the  proposi 
tion  that  the  law  of  the  United  States  with  which  it  comes  in  conflict 
is  void? 

I  am  looking  at  this  alleged  cause  of  grievance  now,  as  one 
which,  if  it  have  any  foundation  in  fact,  whatever,  can  be  easily 
removed ;  or  rather,  I  wish  to  say,  it  cannot  possibly  have  any  effect 
upon  the  interests  and  rights  of  the  southern  men  and  slavery.  The 
law  concerning  the  recapture  of  fugitive  slaves,  has,  by  the  act  of 
1850,  been  submitted  exclusively  to  the  courts  of  the  United  States. 
The  State  courts  have  now  nothing  to  do  with  it,  as  was  the  case 
under  the  law  of  1793.  It  must  follow  as  a  legal  consequence,  if 
they  deem  the  law  of  1793,  and  the  amendatory  law  of  1850,  to  be 
within  the  constitutional  powers  of  Congress,  that  they  will  execute 


462  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

that  law ;  and  every  law,  and  every  State  constitution  coming  in  con 
flict  with  any  part  of  that  law  will  be  declared  by  them  totally  void. 

When  I  assert  this  as  a  legal  proposition,  I  presume  there  is  not 
a  man  on  this  floor  who  will  not  agree  with  me.  If,  then,  some  of 
these  laws  passed  by  some  States,  called  northern,  have  come  in  con 
flict  with  the  laws  of  the  United  States,  they  were  mere  incompetent 
acts  of  the  States,  mere  incapable  attempts  by  the  States  to  inter 
fere  with  the  just  and  proper  execution  of  that  law  of  the  United 
States  which,  when  declared  constitutional  by  the  courts  of  the  Fed 
eral  Government,  is  made,  by  the  Constitution  under  which  we  live, 
the  paramount  law  of  the  land ;  for  that  Constitution  ordained  that 
the  Constitution  itself,  and  the  laws  made  in  pursuance  of  it,  and  the 
treaties  made  under  it,  should  be  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  any 
thing  in  the  constitution  or  laws  of  any  State  to  the  contrary  not 
withstanding. 

The  committee  were  painfully  anxious  to  find  out  whether  any 
injury  had  ever  resulted  to  the  property  of  any  southern  man  by 
reason  of  this  conflict  of  law.  I  beg  my  friends  upon  this  side  of 
the  House  to  pardon  the  use  of  that  common  word  as  applicable  to 
the  condition  of  a  person  who  owes  labor  to  another.  A  slave  in 
the  slave  States  is  called  property,  and  is  treated  as  such.  He  is 
also  called  a  person,  and  treated  as  such.  I  may  as  well  stop  here  a 
moment  to  say  that  I  am  not  very  much  skilled  in  philology ;  but  I 
profess  to  know  something  about  legal  phraseology.  Upon  this 
point  allow  me  to  say  that,  whenever  a  man  owns  a  thing  which  is 
of  value,  and  which  can  be  converted  into  good  Federal  money,  I 
call  that  thing  property.  I  do  not  say  that  man  can  hold  property 
in  man ;  but  I  do  say  there  is  a  relation  created  between  slaves  and 
the  owners  who  hold  them  by  the  laws  of  the  slave  States,  which 
relation  is  a  thing  of  value,  and  may  as  well  be  called  property,  recog 
nized  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  so  far  as  to  declare 
in  plain  terms,  that  every  State  is  bound  to  deliver  up  one  of  those 
persons  who  runs  away  from  the  man  to  whom  he  owes  labor ;  and 
in  that  it  does  recognize  the  right  of  any  State  to  establish  that  sort 
of  relation.  I  pray  the  day  may  never  arrive  when  the  Federal 
Government  shall  assume  jurisdiction  over  a  subject  so  clearly 
belonging  to  States  alone,  except  in  the  simple  case  of  territory  not 
yet  formed  into  States. 

That  relation  between  the  man  that  does  owe  labor  and  him  to 
whom  that  labor  is  due  is  called,  in  the  familiar  phraseology  of  the 


ON    REPORT    OF    COMMITTEE    OF    THIRTY-THREE.  463 

country,  Slavery.  Though  I  will  not  be  bound  by  any  criticism  of 
my  own  on  questions  of  this  kind,  yet  I  may  observe,  in  passing, 
that  the  word  "slave"  has  been  strangely  perverted  from  its  original 
meaning.  I  think  if  the  history  of  that  very  word  were  looked  into 
by  the  gentlemen  of  the  South,  it  would  teach  them  something  worth 
their  attention ;  and  among  other  matters,  that  the  familiar  appella 
tion  which  they  give  the  black  man  was  derived  from  the  national 
patronymic  of  a  people  now  constituting  one  of  the  most  powerful 
empires  existing  upon  this  earth.  It  was  a  name  given  to  and 
applied  to  white  men,  to  blue-eyed  men,  and  to  fair-skinned  men. 
It  was  simply  "sclave"  or  "sclavon,"  a  name  which,  far  back  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  was  applied  to  that  powerful  nation.  So  many  of 
them  were  in  the  condition  of  servants,  that  it  became  a  common, 
familiar  name  in  after  times  for  all  people  who  were  in  a  state  of 
abject  servitude.  That  former  slave  or  slavon  now  sways  his  scepter 
over  sixty  or  seventy  millions  of  people,  and  may  safely  defy  half 
Europe  in  any  contest  of  national  strength. 

The  great  autocrat  who  well  and  wisely  presides  with  imperial 
and  despotic  sway  over  that  Russian  empire,  has  found  it  convenient, 
recently,  to  institute  a  system  of  things  which  looks  to  the  extinc 
tion  of  serfage  throughout  his  entire  dominions.  Strange,  indeed, 
are  those  changes,  which  time  and  events  bring  about.  The  very 
people,  once  so  abject  as  to  make  their  national  name  in  after  times 
a  synonyme  with  servitude,  have  become  powerful  and  the  owners 
of  vast  numbers  of  slaves ;  and  in  the  plentitude  of  that  power  have 
resolved  that  slavery  or  serfage  shall  exist  no  longer  among  them. 
Why,  then,  should  we,  at  this  day,  carry  on  this  war  of  words? 
We  are  concerned  about  things  no  matter  by  what  word  or  form  of 
words  those  things  are  represented.  I  think  we  may  as  safely  call 
that  relation  of  a  slave  to  his  owner  property,  as  to  give  the  name  of 
property  to  any  other  thing  which  a  man  by  law  may  buy  and  sell. 
Whether  you  call  a  slave  property  or  a  person,  you  do  not  change 
the  nature  of  his  relation  to  his  owner;  you  do  not  alter  his  condi- 
tion,"nor~your  obligation  to  acknowledge  it  by  one  or  the  other  form 
pf  definition.  It  is  enough  to  know  that  whether  rightly  called 
property  or  persons  owning  labor,  the  Constitution  declares  that  if 
they  escape  from  him  to  whom  their  labor  is  due  by  the  laws  of  any 
State,  they  may  be  followed,  reclaimed,  and  shall  be  delivered  up. 
An  alleged  opposition  to  the  law,  founded  on  the  clause  in  the  Con- 


464  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

stitution  to  which  I  have  referred,  forms  one  of  the  complaints  of 
the  South  against  the  North. 

As  I  have  before  stated,  the  law  of  the  United  States  in  ques 
tion  has  devolved  upon  the  courts  of  the  United  States  exclusive 
power  to  administer  and  execute  it  It  has  been  declared  constitu 
tional  by  those  courts.  It  follows  that  it  is  paramount  in  authority, 
either  to  the  law  of  a  State  or  the  constitution  of  a  State ;  and  noth 
ing  therefore  which  controverts  it,  either  in  the  organic  law  or  in  the 
legislative  acts  of  a  State  is  worth  more,  as  an  instrumentality  in 
preventing  you  from  recovering  your  fugitive  slave  than  so  much 
blank  paper  bound  up  in  the  legislative  archives  of  any  State.  It 
will  not  do,  therefore,  Mr.  Speaker,  for  us  to  suppose  that  gentle 
men  of  the  South,  intelligent  men  of  the  South,  lawyers  of  the 
South,  statesmen  of  the  South,  have  ever  in  their  own  minds  consid 
ered  that  this  supposed  conflict  of  laws  furnishes  sufficient  cause  for 
disrupting  the  bonds  of  mutual  good-will  and  brotherly  regard  which 
grew  naturally  out  of  the  Constitution  and  the  union  of  these  States. 

It  has  been  sometimes  said — and  is  distinctly  referred  to  in  the 
President's  message  this  year — that  the  northern  newspaper  press 
has  emitted  publications  which,  when  circulated  in  the  South,  have 
a  tendency  to  excite  domestic  insurrection.  It  has  been  obvious  to 
every  one  that  against  these  wrongs,  it  becomes  every  State  to  guard 
itself.  First,  I  hold  it  to  be  the  duty  of  every  free  State  in  the 
Union  to  suppress  any  publication,  designed  to  be  circulated  in  the 
South  or  North  with  the  intent  to  create  domestic  insurrection.  It 
is  the  plain  duty  of  every  State  to  suppress  such  publications,  and  to 
punish  their  authors. 

I  am  well  aware  that  I  tread  on  dangerous  ground  when  I  treat 
of  the  proper  line  to  be  drawn  between  the  freedom  and  the  licen 
tiousness  of  the  press.  I  know  how  prone  have  been  the  rulers  in 
other  countries  to  use  this  dangerous  power  improperly;  still,  under 
proper  restrictions,  while  the  jury  is  left  free  to  determine  the  intent 
whether  good  or  bad,  with  which  a  book  or  paper  is  written  or  pub 
lished,  no  good  citizen  is  likely,  to  surfer  from  the  principle  I 
propose. 

I  hold  that  every  political  association  calling  itself  a  govern 
ment  has  the  rightful  power  to  protect  its  own  peace,  and  by  proper 
means  to  preserve  itself  from  destruction.  In  a  form  of  Govern 
ment  such  as  ours,  where  all  the  laws  are  enacted  by  persons  elected 
by  a  majority  of  all  the  people,  any  publication  made  with  the 


ON    REPORT   OF    COMMITTEE    OF    THIRTY-THREE.  465 

express  intention  to  excite  forcible  opposition  to  the  laws,  involving 
in  its  consequences  all  the  dangers  of  civil  war,  should  be  regarded 
as  a  crime  and  so  treated,  and  its  author  and  publisher  punished 
accordingly. 

We  are  indebted  to  the  labors  of  Lord  Erskine,  in  England,  for 
the  establishment  of  the  true  and  safe  rule  on  this  subject.  The 
publication  must  be  such  as  would  necessarily  tend  to  excite  domes 
tic  insurrection,  and  it  must  be  written  or  published  with  the  wicked 
intent  to  produce  insurrection ;  of  these  the  jury  should  be  left  to 
judge.  Thus,  while  press  and  tongue  are  left  perfectly  free  to  exert 
all  their  powers  to  reform  abuses  or  promote  great  public  purposes, 
both  are  only  required  to  so  exert  their  powers  and  faculties  as  not 
to  promote  the  destruction  of  all  government ;  at  least,  not  to  intend 
to  do  it.  What  sort  of  a  citizen  is  he,  who,  having  these  easy  reme 
dies  for  the  safeguard  of  all  his  rights,  instead  of  appealing  to  the 
judgment  of  mankind  in  careful  and  well-considered  articles,  will 
publish  an  article  or  utter  a  speech  with  the  intent  to  excite  insurrec 
tion  against  those  laws,  made  by  the  suffrages  of  all  the  people? 
God  knows  I  would  be  the  last  man  in  the  world  who  would  do  any 
thing  that  should  prevent  the  freedom  of  speech,  for  that  is  the  only 
freedom  I  have  ever  known.  But  if  there  is  any  feature  that  distin 
guishes  this  Government  from  others — the  autocracy  of  Russia,  or 
even  constitutional  monarchy — it  is,  that  here  the  people,  by  their 
chosen  representatives,  make  all  the  laws,  State  and  Federal.  For 
this  reason,  he  who  undertakes  to  put  down  the  laws  thus  made,  by 
incendiary  publications,  instead  of  asking  the  people  to  vote  upon 
the  subject  as  he  himself  would  vote  upon  it — willfully  and  wickedly 
excites  to  domestic  insurrection,  and  should  be  punished  as  an 
enemy  to  the  public  peace. 

I  here  dismiss  that  part  of  the  general  subject,  not  doubting 
that  the  good  sense  of  the  people  of  the  States  will,  by  proper 
enactments  at  the  proper  time,  secure  us  against  the  evils  complained 
of.  I  think  it  has  been  shown  to  the  satisfaction  of  every  gentle 
man  that  if  any  law  has  been  passed  by  any  State  intended  to 
impede  any  southern  man  in  the  recapture  of  one  of  those  persons 
who  owe  labor  to  him — in  other  words,  in  the  recovery  of  his  prop 
erty — such  law  is  totally  void ;  it  is  a  mere  ineffectual  attempt  by  a 
State,  if  it  intends  any  such  thing,  to  lift  up  its  puny  arm  against 
the  strong  and  gigantic  power  of  that  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  which  declares  that  all  laws  made  in  pursuance  of  that  instru- 

31 


466  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

ment,  shall  be  regarded  as  paramount  to  State  constitutions  and 
State  laws.  Such  a  law  never  could  have  injured  any  of  them.  It 
never  has.  It  never  will.  I  know  how  slow  southern  men  are  to 
believe  our  declarations ;  I  know  how  utterly  destitute  they  are  of  all 
correct  information  in  regard  to  the  feelings  of  the  North ;  I  know 
the  prejudices  they  entertain  against  our  population;  I  have  heard 
the  unparalleled  and  fearful  expressions  of  them  in  this  hall  during 
the  past  two  years;  I  have  seen  too  plainly,  from  the  newspaper 
press  of  the  South,  how  feelings  and  ideas  dangerous  to  the  peace  of 
the  country  have  been  instilled  into  the  minds  of  the  masses  of  the 
people  of  that  section. 

Mr.  Speaker,  what  next  is  presented  to  the  consideration  of  this 
House  ?  It  has  been  the  constant  effort  of  one  class  of  politicians, 
at  both  the  North  and  the  South,  to  induce  the  people  of  the  South 
to  believe  that  a  political  party,  calling  itself  Republican,  when  it 
shall  have  attained  the  command  of  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States,  when  it  shall  have  command  of  the  executive  department, 
and  shall  have  molded,  in  some  way,  the  supreme  court  of  the 
United  States  and  the  subordinate  United  States  courts,  that  then  by 
some  means,  which  have  never  been  explained,  it  would  use  the 
power  of  the  Federal  Government  to  march  over  the  Constitution 
and  seize  the  property  of  the  slave  States.  This  need  not  be  denied. 
The  press  of  the  South,  the  mysterious  voices  which  have  been 
uttered  in  this  hall  for  the  last  three  years,  show  that  this  is  the 
meaning  of  southern  men  when  they  speak  of  the  dangers  to  be 
apprehended  from  the  predominence  of  that  Republican  party.  This 
is  not  inferred  from  anything  which  that  party  has  avowed — not  from 
any  specific  principles  which  it  has  adopted — but  simply  because  you 
believe  that,  ultimately,  the  great  Abolition  party,  which  you  always 
magnify  in  your  imagination  fifty  or  a  hundred  times  beyond  its 
proper  proportions,  will  obtain  the  control  of  the  Republican  party. 
How  are  we  to  disabuse  your  minds  of  that  idea?  How?  The 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  no  more  gives  to  Congress,  or 
to  the  President,  or  to  the  Courts,  power  over  Slavery  in  the  States 
where  it  exists,  than  it  gives  them  power  to  regulate  the  policy  of 
the  British  empire  in  India. 

But  you  have  assumed  that  the  wicked  intentions  of  that  party, 
pervading  the  legislative  department,  shown  in  its  election  of  an 
executive,  and  finally  permeating  and  poisoning  the  fountains  of  jus 
tice  in  our  courts,  would  overleap  all  constitutional  impediments.  I 


ON    REPORT    OF   COMMITTEE  OF   THIRTY-THREE.  467 

ask  you  if  that  is  not  an  event  so  utterly  improbable  that  it  would  have 
been  wise  to  have  waited  for  the  consummation  of  those  evils  attrib 
uted  to  the  Republican  party,  rather  than  to  have  anticipated  an 
event  which  I  shall  show  you  is  utterly  impossible,  even  under  the 
existing  Constitution.  Some  historian,  writing  a  thousand  years 
hence,  will  look  back  on  this  period  of  our  history,  and  will  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  great  experiment  on  this  continent,  which 
was  intended  to  demonstrate  that  man  was  capable  of  self-govern 
ment,  was  near  a  total  failure  at  this  time ;  and  one  of  his  proofs 
would  be  the  very  insanity — I  can  call  it  nothing  else — which  the 
people  of  the  country  have  exhibited  touching  this  question  of 
Slavery. 

Now,  if  I  may  be  permitted  to  address  myself,  not  to  the 
House,  but  to  that  portion  of  the  House  which  represents  the  South, 
I  would  ask  any  of  you,  gentlemen,  to  describe  to  me  how  it  would 
be  possible  for  the  Republican  party,  or  any  party  that  might  enter 
tain  so  foolish  and  unconstitutional  a  design  as  that  which  you  have 
attributed  to  us,  to  accomplish  their  purpose  ?  You  would  reply,  that, 
when  two-thirds  of  both  branches  of  Congress  are  in  favor  of  it, 
they  can  propose  to  the  people  of  the  States  an  alteration  of  the 
Constitution,  whereby  Congress  shall  have  power  over  this  subject  of 
Slavery  in  the  States.  That  may  be.  But  what  sort  of  change 
would  it  require  in  your  political  system  and  relations  to  give  to  an 
anti-slavery  party  two-thirds  of  both  branches  of  Congress?  There 
are  now  fifteen  slave  States  in  the  Union.  There  may  be  another 
one  next  year.  In  order  to  bring  about  the  accomplishment  of  the 
wicked  designs  which  you  say  is  so  certain,  and  to  prevent  which, 
States  sever  their  connections  with  the  Government,  and  plunge 
themselves  into  anarchy,  and,  it  may  be,  into  the  bloody  whirlpool 
of  civil  war,  there  must  be  forty-five  States  in  the  Union. 

Before,  therefore,  you  can  get  two-thirds  of  both  branches  of 
Congress  to  agree  to  that  change  of  the  Constitution,  while  fifteen 
slave  States  remain,  and  while  you  stand  firm  to  your  rights  and 
your  duties,  there  must  be  thirty  free  States  in  the  Union,  all  con 
curring  in  that  diabolical  attempt  to  change  the  whole  structure  of 
your  Government.  You  have  now  eighteen  States  called  free.  To 
get  to  the  number  of  two-thirds  of  both  branches  of  Congress,  that 
would  ever  recommend  such  a  change  to  the  other  States  of  the 
Union,  you  must  have  twelve  more  free  States  added  to  these  eight 
een  free  States.  I  appeal  to  every  man  upon  this  floor  to  say 


468  SPEECHES    OP    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

whether  he  really  does  believe  that,  in  the  lifetime  of  the  youngest 
child,  born  but  yesterday,  such  a  state  of  things  will  ever  be  pre 
sented  in  this  Republic?  Where  will  you  get  these  States  from? 
Can  you  make  twelve  new  States  out  of  any  territory  that  you  now 
have  ?  Nobody  believes  it  possible.  No  sane  man  believes  it  pos 
sible  or  probable.  The  very  first  step  that  you  say  is  sure  to  be 
taken,  requires  that  which  it  is  utterly  impossible,  with  our  present 
territorial  dimensions,  ever  to  accomplish. 

But  you  say  you  must  acquire  other  territory ;  and  you  gravely 
sit  down  here  in  the  halls  of  legislation,  in  the  only  successful  Repub 
lic  that  has  yet  appeared,  in  our  form,  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  and 
distribute  among  yourselves  the  dominions  of  neighboring  States, 
while  you  are  about  to  break  in  pieces  your  own  Government 
because  you  cannot  agree  as  to  the  occupation  of  your  present 
domain.  You  are  looking  towards  Mexico,  and  Nicaragua,  and  Bra 
zil,  to  determine  what  you  will  do  with  all  their  territory  when  you 
get  it,  while  you  are  not  sure  you  will  have  a  government  to  which 
these  could  be  ceded. 

But  suppose  two-thirds  of  Congress  do  recommend  the  change ; 
what  then  is  the  Constitution  and  the  law?  Three-fourths  of  the 
States  must  agree  to  these  amendments  of  the  Constitution  before 
they  become  valid.  Now,  there  are  fifteen  slave  States  which  will 
never  agree  to  it.  Consequently,  while  those  fifteen  remain,  you 
must  have  forty-five  free  States  to  overcome  them.  And  yet,  with 
all  the  intelligence  of  this  country,  with  $4,000,000,000  of  property 
depending  upon  it,  people  have  been  led  to  adopt  a  view  so  utterly 
absurd  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  so  absurd  and  unreasonable, 
that  no  reasoning  can  be  applied  to  it.  So  singularly  wild  is  it,  that  it 
seems  nothing  more  or  less  than  one  of  those  rare  and  fantastical 
forms  of  madness  to  which  reason  can  have  no  application.  But  the 
patient  North,  the  peace-loving  North,  the  law-abiding  North,  has 
come  now  and  offered  to  you  that,  if  you  have  a  doubt  on  this  subject ; 
if  you  can  believe  that  there  are  to  be  twelve  more  free  States  in  the 
Union  that  would  recommend  such  a  change  in  the  Constitution ;  if 
you  believe  that  you  can  have  twenty-two  more  free  States  in  the 
Union,  so  that  three-fourths  of  all  the  States  will  authorize  such 
change ;  if  you  believe  anything  of  that  kind ;  if  your  slumbers  are 
disturbed  by  it ;  if  the  harmony  and  good  will  which  you  bore  to 
those  abused  brethren  of  yours  in  the  North,  has  given  place  to  any 
feeling  of  enmity,  we  will  do  away  with  that  enmity,  and  render  it 


ON    REPORT    OF    COMMITTEE    OF    THIRTY-THREE.  469 

utterly  impossible  that  the  right  of  property  in  a  man  who  owes 
labor  or  service  to  another  shall  be  interfered  with  by  the  North. 
This  committee,  determined  to  leave  nothing  unattempted  which  held 
out  promise  of  peace,  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  they  will 
recommend  now  to  all  the  States  of  the  Union  to  change  this  Con 
stitution  of  ours  on  that  very  subject,  so  that  there  shall  never  be  a 
project  to  interfere  with  Slavery  in  the  States,  originating  in  any  free 
State ;  and  that  if  anything  of  the  kind  is  ever  suggested,  it  shall 
come  from  a  slave  State,  and  shall  never  be  adopted  until  the  indi 
vidual  action  of  every  State  in  the  Union,  north  and  south,  shall  be 
had  agreeing  to  it. 

The  idea  of  a  determination  to  interfere  with  Slavery  in  the 
States  has  been  fastened  on  the  minds  of  the  masses  of  the  South ; 
and,  acting  on  it,  they  are  now  endeavoring  to  break  up  the  only 
republic  that  can  exist,  as  far  as  we  know,  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 
Out  of  the  anomalies  of  our  time  there  will  be  some  day  writ 
ten  a  strange  chapter  in  history.  The  North  American  republic, 
maddened  by  an  idle  fancy,  acts  upon  that  figment  of  imagination 
as  veritable  fact,  and  the  pangs  of  dissolution  lay  hold  of  her.  In 
this  very  paroxysm  the  instincts  of  her  former  palmy  days  are  upon 
her.  She  turns  her  eyes  in  intervals  of  rest  to  future  acquisition, 
and  insists  upon  providing  for  it  in  the  very  Constitution  which,  in 
her  fits  of  delirium,  she  tears  into  fragments.  Herself  about  to  die, 
she  still  covets  the  lands  of  her  neighbor,  Mexico.  Now  turn  to 
Mexico — young,  weak,  but  still  struggling  Mexico.  For  forty  years 
she  has  been  striving  to  imitate  us.  The  red  cloud  of  war  that,  with 
rare  intervals,  had  enveloped  her,  has,  within  the  last  month,  parted 
its  folds,  and  disclosed  the  star  of  peace.  Religious  despotism,  it  is 
said,  has  received  its  death  wound  there.  Constitutional  government, 
bringing  with  it  liberty  regulated  by  law,  is  likely  to  be  at  last 
realized  in  Mexico.  That  for  which  she  has  fought  forty  years  is 
hers.  That  which  we  have  enjoyed  for  twice  that  length  of  time  we 
are  about  to  trample  under  foot  as  a  worthless  thing.  The  evils  that 
have  crushed,  and  oppressed,  and  broken  down  the  unhappy  peo 
ple  of  Mexico,  are  about  to  be  adopted  by  us,  to  whom  she  has 
looked  as  a  model  for  stability  in  the  execution  of  the  laws,  stability 
in  public  sentiment,  enlightened,  as  it  is  supposed  to  be,  by  a  free 
press,  controlled  by  an  enlightened,  educated,  brave,  industrious  and 
religious  people. 

I  said,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  I  did  not  propose  to  enter  into  gen- 


470  SPEECHES   OF   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

eral  discussion.  There  are  some  subjects,  however,  so  tempting  that 
one  cannot  avoid  pausing  in  the  logical  course  of  argument,  to  step 
aside  and  survey  for  a  moment  the  beauty  or  barrenness  of  the  land 
scapes  that  present  themselves  along  the  heretofore  untraveled  road, 
which  we  are  obliged  to  tread  to-day. 

And  now,  Mr.  Speaker,  a  very  few  words  on  one  other  topic, 
and  I  have  done :  I  allude  to  the  proposition  we  have  submitted  for 
the  admission  of  New  Mexico  into  the  Union  as  a  State.  The  pres 
ent  census  will  show  the  amount  of  the  population  now  existing  in 
what  are  called  the  free  States,  and  in  all  the  territory  north  of  that 
magic  line  of  36°  30'.  It  will  also  show  with  convenient  accuracy 
the  populations  slave  and  free,  existing  in  the  southern  States  and  the 
Territory  of  New  Mexico,  lying  south  of  latitude  36°  30'.  This  Ter 
ritory  is  now  the  great  battle-field  on  which  the  South  and  North 
meet  in  wicked,  foolish,  fratricidal  strife. 

Now,  Mr.  Speaker,  it  has  often  been  said  by  the  South,  that 
they  have  not  their  fair  proportion  of  the  lands  of  the  United  States. 
If  they  have  not,  I  ask  who  is  to  blame  for  it  ?  Grant  this  to  be 
true  in  fact,  which  I  do  not,  is  there  any  portion  of  the  northern  or 
free  States  where  any  man  can  desire  to  establish,  as  an  institution, 
slave  labor  ?  I  think  not.  If  gentlemen  of  the  South  will  look  at 
the  map,  and  mark  that  portion  of  it  which  is  occupied  by  what  is 
called  "free  labor,"  they  will  see  that  there  is  not  one  foot  of  it  to 
which  it  would  be  profitable  to  carry  Slavery.  Whose  fault  is  this  ? 
Will  you  blame  the  Almighty  Maker  of  the  world,  because,  in  estab 
lishing  the  climates  of  this  continent,  He  did  not  place  these  north 
ern  States  and  Territories  near  enough  to  the  sun  to  make  slave  labor 
profitable  there  ?  The  northern  people  are  not  to  blame  for  the  char 
acter  of  the  climate  in  which  they  live.  The  North  is  not  to  blame 
because  the  country  is  adapted  to  corn-fields,  and  wheat-fields,  and 
buffalo-pastures  north  of  36°  30'.  Nor  do  we  of  the  North  arraign 
southern  people  because  the  territory  south  of  that  line  is  suitable 
for  sheep-folds,  cotton,  rice,  and  sugar  plantations.  Will  gentlemen 
of  the  South  make  war  upon  the  North  because  the  Creator  of  all 
worlds,  in  fashioning  this  one  on  which  we  live,  and  making  it  fit  to 
be  inhabited  by  his  creatures,  white  or  black,  guided  by  infinite  wis 
dom  has  made  more  territory  in  our  country  profitable  for  free  labor 
than  that  which  is  suited  to  the  labor  of  the  slave. 

But  you  say  there  is  a  portion  of  this  territory  which  it  would 
be  well  to  devote  to  slave  labor.  You  want  New  Mexico,  which  lies 


ON    REPORT   OF    COMMITTEE   OF   THIRTY-THREE.  471 

south  of  the  line  of  36°  30'.  New  Mexico,  you  say,  belongs  to  you. 
Take  it !  Take  it !  You  do  not  claim,  in  any  of  the  propositions 
which  have  been  submitted,  to  occupy  with  slave  labor  any  territory 
except  that  which  lies  south  of  36°  30'.  Take  it !  I  repeat,  take  it ! 
Will  that  satisfy  you  ?  Will  you  then  be  content?  Alas,  I  fear  you 
will  not.  Why  I  fear  you  will  not,  I  do  not  now  wish  to  explain. 
You  know  there  is  a  radical  difference  of  opinion  recently — it  was 
not  always  so — between  lawyers,  touching  Slavery  and  its  rights  in 
the  Territories.  For  about  sixty  years  they  all  entertained  the  same 
views  upon  this  subject ;  but  recently  it  is  unfortunately  otherwise. 
It  is  now  said  that  Slavery  exists  in  all  our  Territories,  and  that  it  is 
the  duty  of  this  Government  to  protect  it  there  by  laws  enacted  for 
that  purpose.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  Federal  Government,  whenever 
there  shall  be  a  domestic  insurrection  in  a  slave  State,  to  suppress  it, 
and  for  that  purpor e  the  militia  of  all  the  States  may  be  brought  into 
the  field,  if  necessary.  Whenever  that  event  shall  take  place,  the 
constitutional  obligation  to  protect  Slavery  will  then  devolve  upon 
us  all,  North  and  South ;  and  you  will  find  that  thousands  of  men 
from  the  North  will  fly  with  as  much  alacrity  as  the  chivalry  of  the 
South  to  quell  that  insurrection.  You  know  they  would.  If  you 
do  not,  you  are  ignorant,  totally  ignorant,  of  the  real  character  of 
the  people  of  the  North.  To  that  extent  the  Constitution  binds  us 
to  protect  Slavery.  But  we  have  not  supposed  that  Slavery  did  exist 
in  all  the  Territories  by  virtue  of  the  Constitution.  We  have 
regarded  Slavery  as  confined  to  States ;  we  have  regarded  it  as  the 
offspring  of  State  legislation — as  the  child  of  State  constitutions  and 
State  laws. 

What,  then,  shall  we  do  with  New  Mexico  ?  This  committee 
has  provided  that  we  shall  do  precisely  what  it  is  now  competent  for 
Congress  to  do,  and  what  would  put  an  end  to  the  issues  which 
divide  us  concerning  the  jurisdiction  of  Congress  over  the  people 
there.  Let  it  become  a  State  and  form  its  own  institutions.  Now, 
the  question  is  submitted  to  us  all,  why  may  not  that  be  done  ?  If 
we  cannot  agree  about  the  legal  right  of  the  Government  to  do  this 
or  that,  about  the  legal  right  of  a  man  to  carry  his  slave  every 
where,  let  us  drop  the  legal  question ;  and  since  there  is  probably  an 
irreconcilable  difference  between  the  North  and  South  as  to  the  pow 
ers  and  duties  of  Congress  over  Slavery  in  the  Territories,  I  propose  to 
take  all  the  territory  south  of  36°  30'  and  admit  it  as  a  State  at  once 
into  the  Union.  This  is  all  the  territory  claimed  by  the  South.  It 


472  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

must  very  soon  become  a  State,  and  then  all  agree  it  may  elect  to 
have  Slavery  or  reject  it.  Let  this  be  done  now.  If  the  people 
shall  ordain  Slavery  in  their  constitution,  the  organic  law  of  1850 
declares  they  may  do  so,  and  be  admitted,  to  use  the  language  of 
the  act  of  1850,  ''with  or  without  Slavery."  If  they  should  pro 
hibit  Slavery,  they  have  only  exerted  a  right  of  which  they  never 
can  be  deprived ;  and  the  South  will  submit,  I  doubt  not,  without  a 
murmur. 

[  Here  the  hammer  fell  and  Mr.  Millson  obtained  the  floor.  Mr.  Bocock  said  he 
trusted  the  gentleman  from  Ohio  would  be  allowed  to  finish  his  remarks.  Mr.  Mont 
gomery  moved  to  suspend  the  rules,  to  enable  the  gentleman  to  go  on.  Mr.  Millson 
said:  "I  hope  that  there  will  be  no  objection  made  to  the  request  of  the  gentleman 
from  Ohio,  as  the  House  has  lately  very  often  extended  the  courtesy  to  members  to  con 
tinue  their  remarks  beyond  the  hour  allotted  to  them.  I  understand  that  he  only 
desires  about  fifteen  minutes  more  to  finish  his  remarks.  That  has  lately  been  granted 
to  many  gentlemen,  and  I  hope  it  will  be  granted  to  the  gentleman  from  Ohio  by  unan 
imous  consent."  Mr.  Vallandigham  said  he  trusted  that  no  objection  would  come  from 
his  side  of  the  House.  The  motion  to  suspend  the  rules  was  agreed  to  and  Mr.  Cor- 
win  was  granted  leave  to  conclude  his  remarks.] 

Mr.  Corwin.  I  thank  the  House  cordially  for  the  indulgence 
thus  extended  to  me,  and  will  promise  not  to  abuse  it. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  hope  the  House  will  bear  with  me  while  I 
explain  to  them  what  perhaps  may  not  have  been  made  apparent  as 
yet,  the  present  condition  of  the  Territory  of  New  Mexico.  We  all 
know  that  when  the  organic  law  for  that  Territory  was  enacted  by 
Congress,  we  were  verging  to  the  very  condition  in  which  we  are 
unhappily  now  placed.  It  was  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  peace 
among  the  States  of  the  Union,  for  the  purpose  of  restoring  the 
harmony  and  concord  of  the  States,  that  the  law  of  1850  was  passed, 
organizing,  among  others,  the  Territory  of  New  Mexico.  It  was 
enacted  by  that  law  that  the  Territorial  Legislature  should  enact 
laws  for  the  government  of  the  Territory,  should  report  them  to 
Congress,  and  if  Congress  should  disapprove  of  them,  they  should 
be  null  and  void.  It  follows,  from  a  proper  construction  of  that 
statute,  therefore,  that,  until  both  branches  of  Congress  shall  disap 
prove  of  that  law  of  New  Mexico  which  was  enacted  in  1859, 
establishing  Slavery  in  that  country,  Slavery  will  be  the  condition 
of  New  Mexico.  This,  sir,  must  remain  her  condition  until,  by  a 
vote  of  the  Senate  concurring  with  a  vote  of  the  House,  that 
law  shall  be  annulled. 

I  ask  gentlemen,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  what  is  likely  to  happen  in 
respect  to  that  Territory  ?  How  long  will  it  be  before  you  can  com- 


ON    REPORT    OF    COMMITTEE    OF   THIRTY-THREE.  473 

mand  a  majority  of  votes  in  the  Senate?  While  the  States  are 
bound  by  their  allegiance  to  the  Union,  and  found  in  their  places  in 
that  great  convocation  of  sovereign  States,  how  long  will  it  be  before 
you  can  get  a  vote  which  will  annul  that  law  of  New  Mexico  ?  I 
shall  not  answer  this  question.  I  know  that  it  is  subject  to  be 
answered  variously  by  minds  which  entertain  various  views  of  the 
future.  Be  that  as  it  may,  we  are  bound  by  a  law  acted  on  by  a  Ter 
ritorial  Legislature  in  the  exercise  of  the  powers  given  it.  It  has, 
under  the  authority  of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  established 
Slavery  in  New  Mexico,  and  it  exists  there  this  day  by  a  law  as  pow 
erful  as  any  law  which  can  be  made.  If  that  portion  of  our  vacant 
territory  which  lies  south  of  36°  30'  be,  as  it  certainly  is,  the  only 
portion  of  the  United  States  where  you  wish  to  establish  the  institu 
tion  of  Slavery,  why  not,  then,  take  up  this  territory,  form  it  into  a 
State,  and  admit  it?  Then  the  strife  is  forever  ended.  It  is  inhab 
ited  by  people  who,  only  a  year  ago,  established  Slavery  there. 
Let  them  vote  on  their  organic  law,  and  come  into  the  Union  with 
or  without  Slavery,  as  the  law  of  1850  permits.  Thus  you  will 
remove  forever  this  fearful  fire-brand  which,  if  applied  to  your  tem 
ple  of  freedom,  will  require  something  more,  I  fear,  than  the 
patriotism  and  wisdom  of  the  present  generation  to  extinguish. 
Why  not  cast  from  you  this  apple  of  discord  ?  This  is  all  the  terri 
tory  of  the  United  States  which,  you  pretend,  is  adapted  to  slave 
labor.  It  is  all  we  can  give  you ;  and  it  is  much  more  likely  that, 
eight  or  ten  years  from  this  time,  it  will  be  less  difficult  to  establish 
free  States  than  to  extend  Slavery  there. 

Some  have  said,  some  doubtless  believe,  that  the  people  of  that 
Territory  are  not  sufficiently  educated  in  the  principles  of  free  gov 
ernment  to  carry  on  a  State  government.  I  do  not  think  it  quite 
modest  or  proper  for  us  at  this  time  to  indulge  in  any  harsh  criticism 
on  the  ability  of  men  anywhere  to  govern  themselves.  I  am  willing 
to  trust  the  old  Mexican  and  the  old  Spaniard  of  that  country; 
and  the  peon  too.  Let  me  say  a  word  about  the  peon.  I  myself 
regarded  the  system  of  peonage  as  a  great  abuse  until  I  came  to 
inquire  into  it  I  have  fully  understood  it  from  gentlemen  who  have 
administered  justice  as  judges  in  the  courts  of  New  Mexico.  I  find 
that  it  is  a  voluntary  contract  entered  into  by  one  freeman  to  work  a 
given  length  of  time  for  another  freeman;  and  instead  of  giving 
damages  when  the  contracting  party  violates  that  contract,  it  is  the 


474  SPEECHES    OF   THOMAS   CORWIN. 

law  of  that  Territory  to  enforce  the  execution  of  the  contract  specif 
ically.     That  is  the  whole  of  the  system  of  peonage. 

I  have  no  doubt,  from  the  long  continuance  of  that  system  of 
labor  by  contract,  that  it  is  very  well  adapted  to  the  condition  of 
that  people;  and,  under  our  judicial  system,  cannot  be  greatly 
abused.  It  is  their  mode  of  labor.  Instead  of  giving  damages  on 
the  contract,  when  the  hired  man  refuses  to  perform  his  part  of  it, 
instead  of  pursuing  him  with  a  constable  and  writs  of  execution, 
selling  his  cow,  and  starving  his  children  for  the  want  of  milk,  the 
court  says  to  the  hired  man,  "Work  out  honestly;  fulfill  the  letter  of 
your  contract;  and  if  this  man,  for  whom  you  have  contracted  to 
labor,  and  who  has  advanced  money  to  you  for  your  necessities,  or 
for  any  other  object  abuses  you,  the  court  is  open.  Come  before  it, 
and  you  will  have  redress."  Does  anybody  imagine  a  peon  will  be 
denied  redress,  when  it  is  remembered  that  he  is  a  voter  in  that  Ter 
ritory?  I  am  willing  to  trust  the  present  people  of  New  Mexico  to 
frame  a  constitution  for  State  government,  and  trust  the  future  for  all 
necessary  amendment.  If  they  do  not  know  how  to  do  it,  they  are 
free  to  resort  to  imitation;  and,  I  dare  say,  if  they  imitate  us,  we 
must  be  satisfied  they  have  done  the  best  they  could  to  produce  a 
perfect  system. 

Does  any  man  suppose  it  is  possible  to  combine  all  the  intellects 
which  make  up  this  Congress,  in  both  branches  of  it,  so  that  all  shall 
think  alike  in  regard  to  a  constitutional  point  ?  We  know  how  vary 
ing  idiosyncracies  give  peculiar  character  to  the  operations  of  the 
mind ;  we  know  how  inherent  selfishness  operates  upon  the  weakness 
of  men ;  but  it  is  enough  for  us  to  know  that  the  South  does  believe 
that  a  great  political  party  intends  to  do  it  some  wrong.  Whether 
there  is  any  possibility  of  doing  it,  or  any  truth  in  it  or  not,  it  is 
enough  to  know  that  the  minds  of  our  brethren  are  disturbed ;  that 
their  hearts  are  sad  at  the  prospect,  and  we  ought  to  submit  to  them 
such  terms  as  will  forever  put  it  out  of  the  power  of  that  party  to  do 
those  imputed  wrongs.  And  now  let  it  be  understood  by  our  south 
ern  brethren  that  we  have  constitutional  ideas  upon  this  subject, 
which  it  is  impossible  to  eradicate  from  our  minds ;  and  that,  since 
we  do  differ,  and  that  difference  is  concentrated,  so  far  as  this  institu 
tion  of  Slavery  is  concerned,  upon  the  Territory  of  New  Mexico, 
the  North  generously  offers  to  put  that  Territory  immediately  under 
their  control,  to  be  continued  or  not,  as  the  constitution  made  by  the 
people  shall  ordain.  Whether  it  remain  there  one  or  five  years,  or 


ON    REPORT    OF    COMMITTEE    OF    THIRTY-THREE.  475 

be  driven  out,  is  with  the  people,  who  are  left  free  to  adopt  or  reject 
it.  And  if  you  should  protect  Slavery  there  for  ten  years  to  come, 
every  year  you  would  find  more  white  population  from  the  free 
States  there  than  would  come  from  all  the  slave  States.  Why? 
Because  it  is  not  a  Territory  adapted  to  the  system  of  Slavery  which 
exists  in  the  old  slave  States.  But  it  is  the  best  and  only  Territory 
we  have  to  offer.  It  is  all  we  can  give. 

And  I  now  ask  you,  men  of  the  South,  why  do  you  want  to  go 
there  at  all  ?  You  have  not  slave  labor  enough.  In  no  quarter  of 
the  globe  is  there  such  a  demand  for  labor  as  there  is  in  the  southern 
section  of  this  Union  now  for  slave  labor.  Before  this  present 
unhappy  state  of  our  affairs  had  reduced  the  value  of  everything  in 
the  country,  a  negro,  who  only  a  few  years  ago  was  worth  $400,  was 
worth  from  twelve  to  fifteen  hundred,  and  yet,  in  the  language  of 
one  of  your  eminent  men,  you  declare  that  you  must  expand  or  die. 
How  is  it  that  this  delusion  has  been  fastened  upon  you  ?  The  sta 
tistics  of  your  country  and  the  price  of  your  negroes  should  have 
told  you  that  you  have  not  negroes  enough  for  the  cultivation  of 
your  soil,  and  that  you  will  not,  in  the  natural  course  of  increase, 
have  negroes  enough  for  fifty  years  to  come,  to  work  the  territory 
you  already  possess.  How,  then,  could  you  occupy  New  Mexico? 

I  have  been  examining  with  some  care  into  the  present  condi 
tion  of  the  southern  country.  I  have  sought  information  from  those 
who  ought  to  know;  I  have  been  advised  by  gentlemen  of  the 
South,  and  I  have  regulated  my  judgment  entirely  by  theirs.  In  the 
State  of  Texas  alone  there  are  three  hundred  million  acres  of  lands. 
I  am  informed  by  a  gentleman  who  has  explored  that  State  thor 
oughly,  that  one-third  of  that  entire  quantity  of  land  can  be  profit 
ably  occupied  in  cultivating  cotton.  Another  gentleman  has  told 
me,  that  not  more  than  one-fourth  could  be  so  cultivated.  I  have 
taken  the  latter  statement  as  my  basis  of  calculation.  That  would 
give  seventy-five  million  acres  of  land  in  Texas  which  can  be  profit 
ably  cultivated  with  slave  labor.  How  many  million  negroes  have 
you  now?  Not  quite  four  millions,  counting  men,  women  and  child 
ren.  Now,  I  am  told  by  those  gentlemen  that  one  good  hand  in 
Texas  is  equal  to  the  production  of  five  bales  of  cotton.  The  whole 
product  of  cotton  in  this  country  now  amount  to  about  four  million 
of  bales.  Every  acre  of  this  land  in  Texas  will  produce  one  bale. 

Therefore,  if  the  cotton  lands  alone  of  Texas  are  cultivated  by 
slave  labor,  they  would  produce  seventy-five  million  bales  of  cotton ; 


476  SPEECHES    OF    THOMAS    CORWIN. 

and  that  they  will  do  whenever  the  market  of  the  world  demands, 
and  you  can  get  labor  enough  to  produce  that  amount.  Am  I  mis 
taken  in  this  ?  There  lies  the  land  open  to  the  sun,  spreading  out  its 
bosom  to  you,  men  of  the  South,  inviting  you  to  come  with  your 
slaves,  and  make  these  acres  white  with  cotton  fields.  But  where 
will  you  get  your  slave  labor  from  for  all  this  ?  If  seventy-five  mil 
lion  bales  of  cotton  be  made,  with  an  average  of  five  bales  to  a 
hand,  you  will  want  fifteen  million  working  hands  in  Texas  to  pro 
duce  them.  Now,  out  of  a  family  of  negroes  you  will  not  get  on 
an  average,  more  than  one  working  hand  in  three ;  two  out  of  three 
being  children  or  the  decrepid  and  aged.  So  that,  for  every  work 
ing  hand,  you  have  two  others,  who  are  not  considered  hands. 
Then,  when  you  shall  have,  in  the  ordinary  increase  of  negroes  in 
this  country,  fifteen  million  working  hands  in  Texas,  you  will  have 
forty-five  million  slaves  there.  Now  you  have  only  four  million  in 
all  the  United  States,  and  yet  you  think  you  are  ready  to  suffocate 
for  want  of  room.  You  want  cotton  fields  to  work.  There  they 
are ;  but  where  are  the  slaves  to  work  them  with  ? 

Now,  I  take  it  for  granted  that  Georgia,  Mississippi,  Alabama, 
Tennessee  and  Arkansas,  are  not  occupied  as  they  might  be  with 
slavery,  and  I  believe  that  those  five  States,  if  well  cultivated,  would 
be  equal  at  least  to  one-fourth  of  the  unoccupied  cotton  territory  of 
Texas.  Then  you  would  have  one  hundred  million  acres  of  land  to 
be  worked  by  slave  labor.  Then  supposing  that  each  hand  produces 
five  bales  of  cotton,  you  will  perceive  that  you  will  want  nearly 
twenty  million  working  hands,  which  would  give  you  a  negro  popu 
lation  of  about  sixty  million,  counting  men,  women  and  children. 
Now  you  have  only  four  million ;  but  you  suffocate  and  choke,  and 
must  expand  or  die ;  so  you  say. 

If  in  these  things  I  have  been  mistaken,  southern  men  have 
been  mistaken.  In  the  face  of  these  statistics,  can  you  present  to 
the  civilized  world — or  to  the  barbarian  world — a  well-founded  neces 
sity  for  the  expansion  of  slave  territory?  Look  at  the  eighteen  mil 
lion  white  men  who  occupy  the  free  States,  as  well  as  the  territory 
north  of  36°  30'.  There  we  have  eleven  persons  to  a  square  mile, 
while  you  have  only  nine.  But  you  seem  not  to  care  for  the  suffo 
cation  of  white  men.  Territory  must  be  conquered  for  Slavery, 
when  there  is  a  demand  for  sixty  millions  of  slaves  in  the  country 
now  occupied  by  you,  without  going  to  New  Mexico  at  all.  Is  it 


ON    REPORT    OF    COMMITTEE    OF    THIRTY-THREE.  477 

not   so?      What    then    are    we    quarreling   about?      What    are   we 
to  divide  for? 

But  it  is  proposed  that  we  shall  insert  in  our  proposition  to 
amend  the  Constitution,  that  this  line  of  36°  30'  shall  gird  the  globe, 
and  that  all  south  of  that  shall  be  open  to  Slavery;  and  by  this  pro 
posed  amendment  Slavery  is  fixed  there,  whether  the  people  you 
acquire  wish  it  or  not.  Every  one  who  looks  upon  the  map  knows 
that  it  means  the  conquest  of  Mexico,  and  all  the  small  republics 
in  southern  America.  One  of  our  Mexican  acquisitions  is  now  the 
very  accursed  cause  of  our  ruin ;  and  yet  you  covet  another.  Is  not 
this  the  very  madness  of  the  moon  ?  You  have  four  million 
negroes  now,  and  you  must  increase  the  number  to  sixty  millions 
before  you  can  want  room  for  slave  labor.  Fifty  years  hence  you 
will  not  be  able  to  supply  slaves  enough  to  meet  the  reasonable 
demand  for  slave  labor  in  the  present  slave  States ;  yet  you  will  pon 
der  and  speculate  upon  your  condition  as  it  may  possibly  be  half  a 
century  to  come;  and  unless  your  dreams  are  accepted  as  truths 
now,  and  provision  made  for  you  half  a  century  to  come,  you  rush 
madly  on  the  destruction  of  yourselves,  and  not  yourselves  only, 
but  the  final  destruction  and  overthrow  of  the  best  government 
known  among  men,  and  the  extinction  of  the  fairest  hope  yet  pre 
sented  to  the  longing  hearts  of  a  world. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  shall  say  nothing  more  now  on  the  subject  before 
us.  I  have  omitted  all  reference  to  several  recommendations  of  the 
committee.  I  leave  their  vindication,  if  it  be  wanted,  to  others.  I 
shall  not  follow  the  example  of  some,  who  lift  the  curtain  which  con 
ceals  the  quick  coming  future  from  us.  I  have  no  wish  to  explore 
the  gloomy  prospect  they  have  held  up  to  us.  I  will  not  now 
encounter  the  grim  specters  of  despair  they  present.  I  will  not,  I  can 
not,  anticipate  that  future,  and  walk  forth  among  the  broken  arches, 
the  ruined  towers,  and  prostrate  columns  of  this  glorious  temple  of 
freedom,  in  which  the  tribes  of  the  South  and  the  North  have  so 
long  worshipped  in  peace  and  in  brotherly  love.  That  temple  still 
stands  in  all  its  grand  proportions ;  but  it  stands  alone.  Wander 
over  all  the  earth,  and  you  will  find  no  other  like  it.  I  will  not 
believe  that  the  blows  aimed  at  it,  however  numerous  or  powerful, 
shall  cause  it  to  rock  or  reel.  I  will  hope,  as  they  who  built  it 
prayed  and  hoped,  that  it  shall  stand  forever,  as  it  now  stands,  on  its 
own  solid  and  deep  foundations. 


344 


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